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

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'.

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

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.

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.

Cheers,

Frank

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Frank Bilki<fbilki@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 :slight_smile:

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