Hi all,
I'm looking into using the new custom online help source features available
from Nuke 8 and am wondering if anyone has had any luck linking their own
internal wikis using these features?
Currently at our studio we provide help for internal nodes using a button
as the first knob, which simply launches our internal wiki to a URL. E.g.
if we have a plugin called "Foo", clicking the Documentation button runs
some code kind of like:
nodeClass = "Foo"
nukescripts.start("http://www/display/2D/2D+Nuke+Plugins+{0}
".format(nodeClass))
That all works nicely, but has its downsides too. The button takes up a bit
too much screen real estate in the properties bin, it duplicates the
built-in tooltip button unnecessarily, which has always been the logical
place in Nuke to get help, and it's not altogether a low hurdle for people
to remember to create the button in addition to writing knob tooltips.
So, it would be great to finally ditch our button and move to '?'.
I've read this page in Nuke's online help
<http://help.thefoundry.co.uk/nuke/9.0/Default.html#reference_guide/preface/getting_help.html%3FTocPath%3D_____2>
which describes the three documentation sources: local, foundry and custom,
which look promising on first glance. But the behavior of each doesn't seem
to match what's described in the Foundry help, which makes no mention of
the system which appears to run its backend, Madcap Flare. I don't know
anything about Flare, and not too keen to learn right now. I don't want to
replace our internal wiki if I can help it, just link to our existing one.
*local*
The help says the plugin paths are searched for html files which match the
node class, so Foo.gizmo would look for foo.html. This doesn't work though,
or I may be doing something wrong. Instead of launching a browser reading
$USER/.nuke/foo.html, it launches:
http://127.0.0.1:51820/Documentation/html/Default.html#cshid=Foo
...which just displays Nuke's default online help page, not foo.html. I've
also tried Foo.html, but it doesn't seem case sensitive. Seems Nuke is
using the Flare system instead of just simply launching a browser pointing
to my Foo.html.
*foundry*
(This mode doesn't seem applicable because we need to document our own
internal plugins and gizmos.)
*custom*
This mode seems like it would most closely match our current solution, and
so easiest to implement, but I'm seeing two problems with it...
1) Is it possible to change the URL template which Nuke uses? It forces:
http://www/Default.html#cshid=Foo
...but I need:
http://www/display/2D/2D+Nuke+Plugins+Foo
2) I want the help system to continue using Foundry's (local) help pages
when the user clicks for help for a built-in tool, and to our wiki when
it's a proprietary tool. Possible?
So, this all seems more complicated than I first thought. Do I need to read
the Flare user manual or does anyone have any tricks to get me on my way?
Close to giving up and just keeping our clunky 'Documentation' button.
All tested in under8.0v6 Linux and 9.0v2 Mac & Linux.
Thanks,
Ean
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