Compiling and installing

This document includes parts of the libhelp Readme file (please ignore the overall lowercase writing style). Some text also repeats parts of other help files.

compilation instructions

libhelp sources are written in ansi-c. you will need a working ansi-c compiler (e. g. gcc) to compile libhelp. libhelp requires x11 and osf/motif(tm). we use x11r5 and motif-1.2. we don't know, if it compiles with x11r4 and motif-1.1, but there will be a great chance that it will.

in order to compile libhelp you will need a working imake. the global Imakefile defines the variable LIBDIRS to 'libhelp libButtFace libhtmlw'. if you don't have the xpm library (version 3.4) you will need to add libXpm to LIBDIRS to use the xpm library that is shipped with libhelp.

to build libhelp type:

xmkmf
make Makefiles
make

changing compilation settings

if you want to use a different compiler than gcc type

make CC=<compiler>

in the compilation step.

you can add additional include dirs in INCS, optimisation flags in COPT, additional libraries for your host in LIBS and other makefile definitions in DEFS. For example

make CC=cc LIBS='-lbsd -lregexp' INCS='-I/usr/bsdinclude' \
     COPT='-g' DEFS='-DDEBUG -Wall'

setting up the helpfile searchpath

you can hardcode the path for help files and images with the preprocession macro HELP_PATH. per default, it is set to

"/usr/local/help:../help:help:../images:images:."

but you can compile in your local help directories, for example

make DEFS='-DHELP_PATH=\"/usr/help:/usr/images\"'

if you want `/usr/help' and `/usr/images' be searched for help files. at runtime, you can add entries to the help path with the environment variable LIBHELPPATH.

supposed there are no compilation errors this results in the library files libhelp/libhelp.a, libButtFace/libButtFace.a and if choosen libXpm/libXpm.a (i forgot to say that normally there is a standalone help browser xmhelp as well).

installing libhelp

copy the libraries

libhelp/libhelp.a libButtFace/libButtFace.a libhtmlw/libhtmlw.a

and if compiled

libXpm/libXpm.a

to a directory of your LIBPATH.

copy libhelp/help.h (and if you want to use the other libraries, libButtface/pushbuttons.h libhtmlw/HTML.h and (if compiled) libXpm/xpm.h) to a directory where you find include files.

If you have compiled xmhelp, copy it to a directory in your PATH.

Linking libhelp to your application

to link libhelp to other ansi-c applications you should include the file libhelp/help.h into the sources. link the libraries in the following order:

-lhelp -lButtface -lXpm -lXm -lXmu -lXt -lX11 ...

obtaining libhelp

future versions of libhelp can be obtained by anonymous ftp from

ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de:
	/pub/libhelp/libhelp-<version>.tar.gz

where <version> denotes the version number.

note: libhelp will be officially released in august 95. If there is nothing on ftp.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de mail me for a copy.

supported platforms

libhelp is known to compile on the following platforms (in alphabetical order):

hp    (hp/ux 7.x, 8.x, 9.x).
ibm   (aix 3.2.5 with ibm x11r5 and motif-1.2).
pc    (linux 1.x with x11r5 and motif-1.2).
sgi   (irix 5.1.x).
sun4  (sunos 4.1.x with x11r5 and motif 1.2).
sun5  (solaris 1.2 with x11r5 and motif 1.2).

Libhelp version 1.8.1 (Jun 28. 95).
Thomas Harrer