Mathematica Help Browser from Mathematica 5 in new versions of Mathematica

Question

I remember that someone from WRI stated in the official newsgroup that Mathematica 7 still has a working old-fashioned Mathematica Help Browser from Mathematica 5 for compatibility purposes. But I can not find the post where the code for invoking it is given.

How to invoke and use this legacy Help Browser in new versions of Mathematica?

Boiled

I know it is not exactly what you are asking for, but remember you have reference.wolfram.com/legacy/index.html at hand – Suttles

Answer 1

At this moment I have found two ways to invoke the legacy Help Browser by clicking a button:

DisplayForm@ButtonBox["Preface",
    BaseStyle -> "AddOnsLinkText",
    Active -> True,
    ButtonData :> {"PCT Preface", None}]

and

DisplayForm@
 ButtonBox[" »", BaseStyle -> "Link", Evaluator -> Automatic, 
  ButtonFunction :> (PacletManager`Package`helpBrowserLookup[#] &), 
  ButtonData -> "Help Browser"]

I found that we have the global option HelpBrowserSettings that specifies settings for the legacy Help Browser.

And we still have working functions HelpBrowserLookup and HelpBrowserNotebook (now undocumented) and command FrontEndTokenExecute["RebuildHelpIndex"] for rebuilding the help index of the legacy Help Browser.

Boiled

Answer 2

The old browser will show up if you try to look at documentation for packages that were written in the old format. From the main documentation page, click 'Add-Ons and Packages' at the very bottom-left, and then click on the old package name. Based on what I have installed, it looks like the old packages will have a little orange square in front of them, instead of a triangle that shows/hides additional information.

The old browser is only used for old documentation.

I assume you're aware of the 'Function Navigator' and 'Virtual Book' which provide alternate ways of navigating the new documentation.

Intellect

Thank you! But there should also be a programmatic way to launch the Help Browser and even open a specific documentation page in it. How this can be done? – Boiled

One way I just found myself looking on the Cell expression of a cell with little orange square: ButtonBox[" »", BaseStyle -> "Link", Evaluator -> Automatic, ButtonFunction :> (PacletManager`Package`helpBrowserLookup[#] & ), ButtonData -> "Help Browser"] – Boiled

For new documentation you can use SystemOpen["paclet:ref/NMinimize"]. (I checked this on OS X using 8.0.1.) – Intellect

Perhaps this MathGroup link on 'How to bring up specific doc page programmatically' might be of interest? In particular the reply of John Fultz. – Sonny