khelpcenter search dialog broken

[devweasel]

Binary package hint: kdebase-runtime

When opening khelpcenter i'm used to search for man pages and/or topics i want to have more information about.
Since Lucid this seems no longer possible. There is no Tab named "Search" anymore, i can't build a search index (button grayed out) and when starting khelpcenter from the commandline i get the following error message:

  khelpcenter(2012) KHC::SearchEngine::initSearchHandlers: "No valid search handler found."

I do have htdig installed, which was the cause for problems in the past, i believe.
After a long search i found the following changelog entry within the kdebase-runtime package:

  kdebase-runtime (4:4.4.2-0ubuntu2) lucid; urgency=low

    [ Brandon Holtsclaw ]
    * Removed searchhandlers from being installed to hide the search tab in
      khelpcenter4 (htdig broken/not in main) Closes (LP: #19767)

So i tested htdig and it works fine and as i could install it without problems, i must assume it is in the repositories, too.
According to the result of a IRC help session, khelpcenter seems to work for at least some other people, so i have to also assume that the Search function is supposed to work (otherwise the whole khelpcenter would seem rather pointless to me), but i also confirmed the missing Search tab on at least two other installations (one an in-place upgrade, the other a new installation).

For reference:

Description: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
Release: 10.04

kdebase-runtime:
  Installed: 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4.1
  Candidate: 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4.1
  Version table:
 *** 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4.1 0
        500 http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/ubuntu/archive/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/ubuntu/archive/ lucid/main Packages

khelpcenter4:
  Installed: 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4.1
  Candidate: 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4.1
  Version table:
 *** 4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4.1 0
        500 http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/ubuntu/archive/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     4:4.4.2-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/ubuntu/archive/ lucid/main Packages

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

The feature was removed because htdig cannot be used for Ubuntu (since it cannot be supported at the same level khc is, i.e. latter residing in the main part of the archives, whereas the former is in universe). Without htdig installed khc will fail silently which really looks like broken, and even if installed it does not work for everyone. Simply put it is crap and ought to be redone from scratch, which we plan on doing, just that it is not terribly easy.

I am sorry that this change breaks a formerly working capability of khelpcenter for you, but before it was essentially broken for like 95% of all users and what Brandon did is make it not appear as broken by prevent it from showing up at all. Judging that a missing feature is not as bad as a mostly broken one.

[devweasel (devweasel)]

Ok, thanks for that answer. I can (have to) live with that.
At least now it's documented for reference. Not everyone is so desperate to browse through KDE's full changelog ;-)
I hope i'm not stepping on any toes now, but maybe it would be a good idea to include such vital changes in behaviour in the release notes, as from the users point of few the search still fails rather silently...

Thanks anyway!