Skip to content

✨ Add macOS Help Book Integration #2134

Description

@suhang12332

Description

Add native macOS Help Book integration to CodeEdit.
Currently, CodeEdit does not provide built-in documentation or Help Viewer integration.
Adding a Help Book (.help bundle) would allow users to access offline help content via the system Help Viewer, just like Apple's own apps.

Alternatives Considered

No response

Additional Context

Modern macOS apps like Xcode and Finder still use Help Books for user documentation.
It also supports localization and indexing (hiutil) for search.

Would be great to integrate this in a future release.

Screenshots

Image

like this

Image

Activity

  1. wjk commented on Oct 17, 2025

    @wjk

    If we are going to be considering adding a macOS Help Book to CodeEdit, there is an excellent example of how to make one in this repository under the CotEditor/Resources/CotEditor.help directory tree. Licensed under MIT.

    Tip: There is a poorly-documented JavaScript function you can call that enables the Table of Contents button at the top of the macOS Sequoia Help Viewer window. You can find an example of its use here. Unfortunately, there is no (publicly known) way to use the table-of-contents sidebar in Help Viewer like with first-party apps. However, this technique does make it possible to link to a separate table-of-contents page, which is what is done in the linked code.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or request

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions