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Bug 34704 - Is the Help window resizable?
Summary: Is the Help window resizable?
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE of bug 29448
Alias: None
Product: platform
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Help System (show other bugs)
Version: 3.x
Hardware: All All
: P3 blocker (vote)
Assignee: mslama
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: 40668
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Reported: 2003-07-01 03:27 UTC by petrinet
Modified: 2008-12-22 21:47 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Issue Type: DEFECT
Exception Reporter:

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Description petrinet 2003-07-01 03:27:47 UTC 
When I choose Help->Help Contents, the help windows appears as a 
resizable window. But if I click the Help->About while keeping the 
Help window shown, the about dialog seems to have made the Help 
window not resizable any more. It's inconvenient to use such a Help 
window.
Comment 1 _ tboudreau 2003-07-01 16:59:05 UTC 
Unfortunately, this is an artifact of the fact that AWT
doesn't support having some windows still enabled when a 
modal dialog is shown.  The hack to work around this is
that whenever a modal dialog is shown, the help *component*
is reparented into a new dialog that is owned by the
modal dialog.

The fix for this and a number of related issues is:
 - Support in Java for windows that are never affected
   by a modal dialog
 - Support for showing help in an external web browser
 - Run help in a separate JVM (not reasonable due to
    performance and inter-process communication issues)

So, I'd really love for us to get these issues fixed,
including this one, but it's pretty much unfixable until
either JavaHelp supports browser based help, or AWT
has better support for modal windows (we have escalated
this issue, but I don't know when it will really get
fixed).
Comment 2 Chris Kutler 2003-11-12 21:55:23 UTC 
In my case (XP), I can resize the window by dragging on an edge.
However, after I open any dialog box such as the project manager, the
minimize and maximize buttons disappear from my help window and I have
to restart NetBeans to get them back. As it is very important to be
able to minimize the Help window until I need it, this makes it very
hard to use the help.
Comment 3 _ tboudreau 2004-04-19 14:06:14 UTC 
Reassigning to Marek, new owner of output window and help system
Comment 4 mslama 2005-01-06 14:25:50 UTC 
Should be fixed as exclude modality fix will be integrated in JDK 5.0
Update 3 or 4. Help window stay enabled even when modal dialog is
opened. See issue #29448 for more details.

*** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of 29448 ***
Comment 5 mslama 2005-01-06 14:35:23 UTC 
Yes it works with test patched JRE (Linux/Gnome).
Comment 6 Marian Mirilovic 2005-01-25 08:24:46 UTC 
verified in NB4.1(200501241900)