In general, help is text the user can request to help her understand a program. Context
sensitive help tries to guess just what questions the user would be asking herself at that particular stage of
the program. Java documentation and help tends to be based on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) files.
Help with Applets
You probably came here to get help because one of the Canadian Mind Products utilities, Applets or web pages did
not work for you. Here are the most likely problems:
- If you are using Internet Explorer 7+ you must allow blocked content permission for Active X to run.
This also gives permission to Java to run.
- You need a very recent browser because this website depends on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) 2 which is not even fully supported by
the latest browsers.
Get New Browser
- Each program is labeled with the version of Java it requires. However, I use only the latest Java myself,
JDK 1.7.0_02. This is the only
version I test with. It is the version with the best chance of working. The CurrCon currency displays requires
Java version 1.1 or later. The JDisplay (Java Display) program listings requiresJava version 1.2 or later. Just install the
latest Java and be done with it! You can keep the old version too if you like, just make sure your browser
is configured to us the latest one when you browse this website. You can find what version Java you are using
with the Wassup Applet. Why so much Java? This website is
primarily about Java. I wanted to show off what you can do with it.
Get New Java
- After you have installed the latest Java, you should make sure it is working:
Test Java
- For help getting the console visible so you can see error messages:
Engage Console
- For help with individual browsers see:
Help with Signed Applets and Java Web Start Apps
Installing the Canadian Mindprod Certificate
If you want to reduce hassle with signed Applets, you can once and for all install the Canadian Mind Products
code-signing certificate and mark it is as trustworthy. All you have to do is click the button below:
Install Certificate
If that does not work, you can download the certificate and install it manually per the instructions under
keytool.
Help With Java Web Start
- Java Web Start won’t work until you set up an association between the *.jnlp
files (MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail) application/x-java-jnlp-file) and javaws.exe
both in Windows and your browser. Both Sun and the browser makers have refused to do this automatically.
Growl!
-
Repair any damage.
- For help getting the Java Web Start (JWS (Java Web Start)) working:
Repair JWS
Brute Force JWS
If you can’t get your browser to work with JWS just save the *.jnlp file to disk and run it from the command line
with
The Windows Help Bug
With Vista, Microsoft dropped support for the old .hlp Windows help files. They wanted
authors to convert their programs to the new Vista .chm format and issue new Vista
versions. Most authors did not bother and help for old programs stopped working in Vista.
It was a bold planned obsolescence move, though they protest the motive was security. I am doubtful. They
could have changed the help viewer to disable any potentially dangerous feature.
So what do you do? You can ask the author to provide a Vista version, or you can convert the .hlp files yourself to either .chh, .html,
.pdf etc. Unfortunately, the new help
won’t be integrated with the program to pop up in a context sensitive way. I could not get
Microsoft’s recommended kludge to work.