[X Newbies] Help Window Help

[Alex]

On Monday, Feb 9, 2004, at 10:22 Canada/Eastern, Maria Paulia Belgado 
wrote:

> I tried repairing disk permissions but it didn't help with the 
> problem. Help viewer still having the same problems.

The fundamental troubleshooting technique -- not only for computers -- 
is to isolate the problem. For the Mac OS X, the most basic is the new 
user (see <http://www.macattorney.com/tutorial.html#Anchor-58320> for 
instructions). Does the issue occur with a brand new user? If no, the 
problem is most likely in your settings and prefs -- first thing to 
try, go to ~/Library/Preferences/ and delete the com.apple.help* files. 
If yes, you have a system-wide problem; probably the fastest way out is 
an archive and install with the preserve users and network settings 
option. It's much less troublesome than it sounds.

One note (this is a newbies list, after all): In OS X-speak, ~ stands 
for your Home folder, and /, when not preceded by anything else, for 
the root level of your startup volume; otherwise, / indicates a jump in 
the folder hierarchy. Thus,

~/Library/Preferences

means "the Preferences folder in the Library folder in your Home folder 
in the Users folder on your startup volume", while

/Library/Preferences

means "the Preferences folder in the Library folder on your startup 
volume"

f