[GRASS-user] g.manual tries to run C:\Program Files\Internet Exporer\iexplore (the 'L' is missing from 'Explorer')

[Markus Neteler]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Frank Bilki<fbilki at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Being very, very new to GRASS (6.4.0svn, installed via OSGeo4W) I am reading
> as much documentation as I can lay my hands on, but I keep hitting a
> recurring problem:
>
> Every time I run g.manual I get an error saying it cannot find 'C:\Program
> Files\Internet Exporer\iexplore'. After reading the message very carefully I
> realised it is because the 'L' is missing from 'Explorer'.

This has been reported in
http://trac.osgeo.org/osgeo4w/ticket/86
and AFAIK been fixed. Unfortunately the OSGeo4W-GRASS is
old(er) and does not seem to incorporate this fix. We made
several other fixes, too, which are missing.

Action item: We need a volunteer to take over compilation of the
OSGeo4W-GRASS package. PLEASE SOMEONE :)

> According to the manual page on GRASS Variables and Environment Variables,
> GRASS_HTML_VIEWER is a 'shell environment' variable (this name makes no
> sense to me running under Windows Vista) and I should be able to set it to
> the full path of my current HTML browser. I tried creating a new System
> Variable from My Computer called GRASS_HTML_VIEWER containing the
> appropriate path. It didn't work; GRASS still looked for Internet 'Exporer'.
>
> After a great deal of searching my computer I discovered that the offending
> path is stored within the 'C:\OSGeo4W\etc\ini\grass.bat' file. However, I
> can't find any references in the documentation that could lead me there in a
> more controlled way.

> But, even after I added the 'L' to the path I still get the same error:
>
> C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore: command not found

I have seen this:
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/37214

but I wonder if OSGeo4W has a different grass.bat file?

> What is wrong with this command? Is it because there are spaces in the
> folder names? I've tried putting it in quotes, changing %PROGRAMFILES% to
> C:\Program Files, and putting the .exe after iexplore, but nothing seems to
> work.

Please check with above changeset, maybe it gives an idea.

> I know there are alternative ways to get to the documentation (which are
> what I'm using now), but I am using this as a learning exercise and I want
> to understand exactly what's happening here. I also wanted to share this
> with others who might be having the same problem with this particular
> version.

Thanks for trying, we really appreciate feedback (and need more power
users for OSGeo4W).

Markus