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Viewing Online Documentation Using the AnswerBook2 System

Chapter 2 Getting Started

The AnswerBook2 product replaces the AnswerBook product and is part of the Solaris 7 operating environment release. To view online documentation, you need an HTML 3.2-compatible browser (such as HotJavaTM or Netscape NavigatorTM) and access to a documentation server (a machine on which the document collections are installed and which runs a web-based server to deliver them to you). For more information, choose from the following:

Do I Need to Install Anything?

The following table indicates what you need to do or install to provide specific AnswerBook2 functionality.

Table 2-1 When and What to Install
 If you want to do this.... Then do this...
 View online documentation from your desktop (any platform, any operating environment).Start a web browser and enter the documentation server's URL (for example, http://imaserver:8888/). See "Launching the AnswerBook2 Viewer".
 Automatically launch a web browser with the appropriate server URL from your desktop.If you are running the Solaris 7 operating environment, then identify a documentation server and select the AnswerBook2 option from the CDE Help pop-up menu or the OpenWindows Programs menu. See "Launching the AnswerBook2 Viewer".
 Enable your system (machine) to deliver (serve) documentation.Install the documentation server software from the Solaris 7 Documentation CD. See Installing and Administering an AnswerBook2 Server.
 Add documentation from the Solaris 7 Documentation CD or other locations to your documentation server.The document administrator is the only user authorized to perform this function. See Installing and Administering an AnswerBook2 Server.

Launching the AnswerBook2 Viewer

The system launches a web browser with the URL for the documentation server if you are running the Solaris 2.6 or later operating environment and you either:

The system determines the web browser to launch by searching your path and launching Netscape NavigatorTM or the first web browser it finds in your path. For information on how the system determines the URL for the documentation server, see "Finding a Documentation Server".

You can also access the AnswerBook2 product from any HTML 3.2-compliant web browser. Start up your web browser and enter the appropriate documentation server URL. For example, if your system administrator installed an AnswerBook2 documentation server on the system imaserver, you would enter the URL http://imaserver:8888/.

Viewing Information

Once you have launched the AnswerBook2 viewer, you click on underlined text (depending on how your browser is configured to display its links) to navigate to a book or chapter. For more information about how to navigate through the AnswerBook2 system, see Chapter 3, Navigating Through the AnswerBook2 Interface.

Finding a Documentation Server

When you launch the AnswerBook2 viewer from the Solaris operating environment, the software displays a list of collections installed on the "default" documentation server. The "default" server is identified using one of the following mechanisms:

  1. If you have defined the environment variable, AB2_DEFAULTSERVER, the AnswerBook2 viewer launches using the URL defined by that variable. For example, you might have the following line in your .cshrc file:


    setenv AB2_DEFAULTSERVER http://imaserver.eng.sun.com:8888/

  2. If the machine from which you initiated the AnswerBook2 function is a documentation server, the AnswerBook2 viewer launches using the URL: http://localhost:port/

    Where port is the port number on which the documentation server is running and defaults to 8888.

  3. If your document administrator has registered the AnswerBook2 server with FNS (Federated Naming Service), the AnswerBook2 viewer uses the URL of the registered server.

If you have no documentation servers available and you have Internet access, you can also access Sun's master documentation server at http://docs.sun.com/.

Customizing AnswerBook2 Information

To customize the information you see in the browser, select the AnswerBook2 Options button. This brings up the Options Page, from which you can:

You need to redefine your preferences if you:

Documentation server names are interpreted literally. For example, imaserver.eng.sun.com is considered to be a different server from imaserver.

Note -

Personal Library and Language Preferences functions are available only if your browser supports cookies and you have not turned off cookie support. Preferences expire after approximately one year and must be reset.

Defining Your Personal Library

An AnswerBook2 server might contain a large number of collections, each of which contains several books. You can choose whether or not to view all of the collections on the server, based on the settings in your Personal Library Preferences.

The Personal Library Preferences page lists the Complete Library (all collections) available on the current documentation server. To add collections to your Personal Library, click on the checkbox next to the collections you want displayed, then click Save Changes. The change appears immediately on your library page.

You need to redefine your Personal Library if you:

Documentation server names are interpreted literally. For example, imaserver.eng.sun.com is considered to be a different server from imaserver.

Note -

The Personal Library Preferences function is available only if your browser supports cookies and you have not turned off cookie support. Personal Library Preferences expire after approximately one year and must be reset.

Specifying a Language

You use the Language Preferences page to tell the AnswerBook2 product to display its on-screen instructions and Help to you in a specific language, such as English. Changing your language preference does not automatically provide translated document collections; The documentation server displays document collections in the language in which they are created.

Some document collections look wrong unless the correct language preference is chosen. For example, a Japanese book will not display correctly unless the language preference is set to Japanese and the correct encoding (EUC or Shift-JIS) is selected.

To specify the language you want used for instructions and other on-screen information, on the Language Preferences page, select the icon that displays the language you want used and click Apply. For some languages, you might see an additional screen that asks you to choose a specific code set (or encoding) for that language. For more information about specifying a language encoding, see "Specifying Language Encoding".

You need to redefine your Language Preferences if you:

Documentation server names are interpreted literally. For example, imaserver.eng.sun.com is considered to be a different server from imaserver.

Note -

The Language Preferences function is available only if your browser supports cookies and you have not turned off cookie support. Language Preferences expire after approximately one year and must be reset.

If your browser does not support cookies but allows you to set the browser's language and sends that information to the server, the AnswerBook2 interface uses the browser's language setting.

Caution - Caution -

The AnswerBook2 interface defaults to the language of the server if any of the following conditions apply:

Specifying Language Encoding

If you ask the server to display instructions and Help in a language that can be encoded differently (for example, in the Japanese language, you might want EUC or Shift-JIS encoding), the AnswerBook2 server asks you to specify the encoding. To respond to this query, click on the encoding scheme that reads "correctly" to you.

Note -

You might also have to change the encoding of your browser to match the encoding of the AnswerBook2 interface.

Accessing Server Administration Functions

The Options Page provides a link to the documentation server Administration interface for the current documentation server. If administrative access control is turned on for this server, the system prompts you for a valid administrator name and password. For more information about administering a documentation server, see Installing and Administering an AnswerBook2 Server.