Help Browser in the SuperCollider IDE seems broken

[bartje]

In ubuntu 19.04 installing SuperCollider IDE with SuperCollider 3.10.0 results in a working IDE and SuperCollider, but the documentation in the Help browser is incomplete, or not rendering. And the search function does not show any result.

Steps to reproduce:
- install SuperCollider IDE
- start SuperCollider IDE (jack might be required)
- if the Document docklet is not open, open it from the menu 'View'
- perform a search, or click on any of the items.*

Expected result:
seeing the contents of the documentation

Current result:
no documentation shown, or rather incomplete.

With incomplete I mean that for example the getting started tutorials do show up, but without the example code. Expected is to see the code, it should even be selectable and executable by pressing ctrl enter. Since it does not show up, it's not running of course.

Here the document indexes are completely missing.

In ubuntu 18.10 it all worked as it should.

steps to try fixing it:
- deleting .local/share/superCollider then restart supercollider
- uninstalling with configuration files, and re-installing

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.04
Package: supercollider-ide 1:3.10.0+repack-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-18.19-lowlatency 5.0.12
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-18-lowlatency x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu27
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Jun 21 20:42:04 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-03-19 (94 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Studio 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64 (20181017.2)
SourcePackage: supercollider
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to disco on 2019-06-07 (14 days ago)

[bartje (bart-deruyter)]

Image of the empty documentation docklet

[lotuspsychje (lotuspsychje)]

Tested on 18.04.2 with kernel 4.18 and supercollider version 1:3.8.0~repack-2 and cannot reproduce,
the help browser is working as expected.

[forrest curo (treegestalt)]

Definitely applies to my new 19.04 installation

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[forrest curo (treegestalt)]

If you find the help files on your disk and load them into firefox, the example code fails to display there either.

You can tell that the example code is present: select & copy an area containing example code; paste into gedit; and there it is!

This condition does not respond to changing font options in the supercollider ide proper.

[forrest curo (treegestalt)]

One workaround, for now, is to use the online help files:
"This is the end of this introduction to SuperCollider. A few extra learning resources are listed
below. Enjoy!
• An excellent series of YouTube tutorials by Eli Fieldsteel: http://www.youtube.com/
playlist?list=PLPYzvS8A_rTaNDweXe6PX4CXSGq4iEWYC.
• The standard SC get-started tutorial by Scott Wilson and James Harkins, available online
and in the built-in Help files: http://doc.sccode.org/Tutorials/Getting-Started/
00-Getting-Started-With-SC.html
• Nick Collins’ online tutorial: http://composerprogrammer.com/teaching/supercollider/
sctutorial/tutorial.html
• The official SuperCollider mailing list is the best way to get friendly help from a large
pool of users. Beginners are very welcome to ask questions in this list. You can sign
up here: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/facilities/BEAST/research/supercollider/
mailinglist.aspx
• Find a SuperCollider meet-up group in your city. The official sc-users mailing list is the
best way to find out if there is one where you live. If there is no meet-up group in your
area, start one!
• Lots of interesting snippets of code can be found here: http://sccode.org/. Sign up for
an account and share your code too."
[from https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~ruviaro/texts/A_Gentle_Introduction_To_SuperCollider.pdf ]

[Bryan Green (bcgreen)]

Please fix this. This is a known issue as I have discovered at the SuperCollider GitHub page. The Ubuntu package is missing the JavaScript files needed for the help browser.

[Bryan Green (bcgreen)]

Workaround that worked for me:

Delete the three links in /usr/share/SuperCollider/HelpSource/lib
and replace them with the files from here: https://github.com/supercollider/supercollider/tree/Version-3.10.0/HelpSource/lib

[Bryan Green (bcgreen)]

I'm a developer looking to contribute to Ubuntu...guess I'll make this my first project. :)

[Bryan Green (bcgreen)]

Hmm...running:

dpkg-query -L supercollider-common

On my system claims the JavaScript files were installed:

/usr/share/SuperCollider/HelpSource/lib/codemirror-5.39.2.min.js
/usr/share/SuperCollider/HelpSource/lib/codemirror-addon-simple-5.39.2.min.js
/usr/share/SuperCollider/HelpSource/lib/jquery.min.js

I have a feeling something else whacked my SC installation...

[Bryan Green (bcgreen)]

Nope...I deleted the .js files I had plopped in /usr/share/SuperCollider/HelpSource/lib and did a reinstall of supercollider-common. The same issue appeared, and I found that symbolic links to the /usr/share/javascript directory were created:

Mar 5 01:56 codemirror-5.39.2.min.js -> ../../../javascript/codemirror/codemirror.js

Mar 5 01:56 codemirror-addon-simple-5.39.2.min.js -> ../../../javascript/codemirror/addon/mode/simple.js

Mar 5 01:56 jquery.min.js -> ../../../javascript/jquery/jquery.min.js

...however, only the jquery.min.js link points to an actual file. There is no 'codemirror' directory under /usr/share/javascript.

[Bryan Green (bcgreen)]

OK, mystery solved. supercollider-common needs to have the libjs-codemirror package as a dependency.

[Dan Streetman (ddstreet)]

Hi @bcgreen, can you provide a patched package in a PPA, or a debdiff including the patch? That's the next step in getting a sponsor to review/upload this for you.

Thanks!

[Alberto J Gomez (albertojgomez)]

I am experiencing the issue as well. I attempted the fix @bcgreen mentioned, but either I got something wrong, or it doesn't work for everyone, the help browser remains broken
To add a bit more info, when I run a help browser manually in SCwith

HelpBrowser.new

I can see : "JavaScript Message: Uncaught ReferenceError: $ is not defined" on the post window so it does seem like a js problem

[Alberto J Gomez (albertojgomez)]

Solution is here https://github.com/supercollider/supercollider/issues/4392#issuecomment-504667358

Or alternatively what worked for me

```
 cp /usr/share/SuperCollider/HelpSource/lib/jquery.min.js ~/.local/share/SuperCollider/Help/lib/jquery.min.js
```

[Logan Rosen (logan)]

This bug was fixed in the package supercollider - 1:3.10.4+repack-1

---------------
supercollider (1:3.10.4+repack-1) unstable; urgency=medium

  [ Ondřej Nový ]
  * Use debhelper-compat instead of debian/compat
  * d/changelog: Remove trailing whitespaces

  [ Felipe Sateler ]
  * Use ninja for building
  * Drop python build-dependency, as it is unused (Closes: #938601)
  * Add missing Depends on codemirror and jquery (Closes: #919838)
  * Drop unused patch file supernova-i686-march-flag.patch
  * Add full CC-BY-SA text

  [ Dennis Braun ]
  * New upstream version 3.10.4+repack
    - Fix build with boost 1.71 (Closes: #959436)
  * d/control:
    + Bump debhelper compat to 12
    + Bump Standards-Version to 4.5.0
    + Drop cwiid support. See #942981
    + Add the libs section to libscsynth1
    + Add me as uploader
    + http > https
    + Set RRR: no
  * d/copyright:
    + Update Files-Excluded
    + Fix spelling errors
    + Update file entries
    + http > https
  * Update patchset
  * supercollider-common.install: Add the dirs examples and HID_Support
  * Use d/source/lintian-overrides and not d/source.lintian-overrides
  * Add d/upstream/metadata

 -- Dennis Braun <email address hidden> Mon, 08 Jun 2020 23:59:00 +0200