How to customize Oxygen Eclipse help

[H_Too_Oh]

Hello,

I've been following instructions from Eclipse.org and Dita.xml.org as well as other places, trying to customize the Eclipse Infocenter that I've created using Oxygen.

The Eclipse Help plugin works fine if I just put it in the Eclipse/plugins directory and then start it using a command line, basically using Eclipse as the server.

What I can't seem to get is how to customize the Infocenter I'm creating. The steps are byzantine, but also none that I've followed have worked. If I change things in my plugin.xml file, following steps that I see online, then my Infocenter doesn't even show up at localhost:8081 when I run the command to start it. If I put it back to how the Eclipse Help was generated by Oxygen, it appears again.

I'm just wondering of there's something particular about the Eclipse Help output from Oxygen that requires special instructions to customize, in addition to the ones about editing the Eclipse/configuration/config.ini file and all the rest?

As an alternative, I would be happy to just edit the hard-coded .jar files in the Eclipse plugins directory to change what I need, because I'll only be generating one Infocenter or perhaps two but the customization I want to make can be the same for both. I don't need customization tailor-made for each plugin.

For example, the first landing page in the Infocenter has some generic "how to use this help" text, with a banner above it containing question mark graphics. I found where this is generated from <..eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.help.base_3.6.2.v201202080800/doc/help_banner.jpg>

If I could just replace that graphic and change the text, I would be happy, I'd put the company logo there, insert some welcome text, and that would be fine.

However if I try to expand the org.eclipse.help.base_3.6.2.v201202080800.jar file to get at the graphic and replace it, then when I re-jar it, Eclipse doesn't recognize it anymore. I've tried doing the replacement using Eclipse, that is, importing, changing the graphic, and exporting the org.eclipse.help.base_3.6.2.v201202080800.jar file, but it has the same result. Eclipse acts as if the .jar file is absent, and only when I put back put back the original unaltered and unopened .jar file does it work again.

If anyone has any advice, preferably as detailed as possible, it would be most welcome.

Thanks

[sorin_ristache]

Hello,

The Eclipse Help plugin works fine if I just put it in the Eclipse/plugins directory and then start it using a command line, basically using Eclipse as the server.

This is the output of the DITA transformation called Eclipse Help from Oxygen: an Eclipse Help plugin that should work without problems as Eclipse plugin.

I'm just wondering of there's something particular about the Eclipse Help output from Oxygen that requires special instructions to customize, in addition to the ones about editing the Eclipse/configuration/config.ini file and all the rest?

There are no special instructions, it is just a help plugin.

As an alternative, I would be happy to just edit the hard-coded .jar files in the Eclipse plugins directory to change what I need, because I'll only be generating one Infocenter or perhaps two but the customization I want to make can be the same for both. I don't need customization tailor-made for each plugin.

For example, the first landing page in the Infocenter has some generic "how to use this help" text, with a banner above it containing question mark graphics. I found where this is generated from <..eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.help.base_3.6.2.v201202080800/doc/help_banner.jpg>

If I could just replace that graphic and change the text, I would be happy, I'd put the company logo there, insert some welcome text, and that would be fine.

However if I try to expand the org.eclipse.help.base_3.6.2.v201202080800.jar file to get at the graphic and replace it, then when I re-jar it, Eclipse doesn't recognize it anymore. I've tried doing the replacement using Eclipse, that is, importing, changing the graphic, and exporting the org.eclipse.help.base_3.6.2.v201202080800.jar file, but it has the same result. Eclipse acts as if the .jar file is absent, and only when I put back put back the original unaltered and unopened .jar file does it work again.

It seems it is just a problem of re-creating the jar/zip archive, like a wrong algorithm or a compression method not accepted by Eclipse. What is the tool that did the unzipping and re-zipping?


Regards,
Sorin

[H_Too_Oh]

Hi Sorin,

I found an answer to how to modify the .jar files, here: http://www.xmldocs.info/?page_id=6787

I had been using several types of commands to expand and re-compress the .jar files, but what I didn't know about were these commands to extract and update them with new or modified files, without expanding the .jar archive. My modifications all work now.

Thanks for the response, appreciate the help.