Howto: GnoCHM, a nicer way to view chm files

[Technoviking]

Many of the computer books I read include a cd with a chm copy of the book. I like the ability to read these files under Ubuntu. Ubuntu does include xchm which does have a nice gtk2 interface now, but lack some of the searching feature that you get in Windows.

Gnochm (http://gnochm.sourceforge.net/) has some really nice features for viewing chm files. I have made the needed .deb files for Ubuntu Breezy.

1. Get Files

wget -c http://mikesplanet.net/deb/gnochm_0.9.6-1~breezy_all.deb
wget -c http://mikesplanet.net/deb/python-chm_0.8.2-3~breezy_i386.deb


2. Install chmlib
apt-get install chmlib

3. Install deb files
sudo dpkg -i python-chm_0.8.2-3~breezy_i386.deb gnochm_0.9.6-1~breezy_all.deb
Please note: While compiling gnochm, Ubuntu told me that python-chm was superseded by another deb file in the Ubuntu repos, but I could not figure out which one.

Let me know if you encounter any problems.
Mike

[souled]

Awesome thanks for this. No problems with this HOWTO, thanks.

[Samuel]

great stuff, been trying to get this working properly from an old howto and not getting anywhere, thanks for the .debs :)

[mcrosmar]

Thanks Mike for debs.... Very good HOWTO..... :)

[flower]

great ! thank you !

it's really nicer than xchm :)

[waffen]

Hello,

I found xchm in Breezy in this location:

Add programs>Graphics>More programs... :-)

[Fester]

Great FAQ, much appriecated.

As requested you said to post any problems, and I didn't have any.

Thanks again.

[StormBlast]

Cannot open chm with cyrillic content (cp1251), got this error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1861, in ?
inst.open_file(args[i])
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1410, in open_file
if self.request_file(self.chmfiles[-1].chmfile.home):
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1279, in request_file
f, pathname, flink = self.internal_request_file(link)
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1273, in internal_request_file
f, pathname = self.resolve_link(flink)
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1256, in resolve_link
return func(link, internal)
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1174, in open_chm
result, ui = self.chmfiles[-1].chmfile.ResolveObject(pathname)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/chm/chm.py", line 390, in ResolveObject return chmlib.chm_resolve_object(self.file, path)
TypeError: chm_resolve_object() argument 2 must be string without null bytes, not str
English chms opens with no errors.
Default locale is en_US.UTF-8.

[Technoviking]

Cannot open chm with cyrillic content (cp1251),

English chms opens with no errors.
Default locale is en_US.UTF-8.
I will check into this.

Mike

[ounas]

Thanks, works a treat

-:D

Ounas

[bored2k]

Hawt. Thanks.

[SpEcIeS]

Nice work. :D

[shidai.liu]

Cannot open chm with cyrillic content (cp1251), got this error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1861, in ?
inst.open_file(args[i])
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1410, in open_file
if self.request_file(self.chmfiles[-1].chmfile.home):
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1279, in request_file
f, pathname, flink = self.internal_request_file(link)
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1273, in internal_request_file
f, pathname = self.resolve_link(flink)
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1256, in resolve_link
return func(link, internal)
File "/usr/bin/gnochm", line 1174, in open_chm
result, ui = self.chmfiles[-1].chmfile.ResolveObject(pathname)
File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/chm/chm.py", line 390, in ResolveObject return chmlib.chm_resolve_object(self.file, path)
TypeError: chm_resolve_object() argument 2 must be string without null bytes, not str
English chms opens with no errors.
Default locale is en_US.UTF-8.


My locale is en_GB.UTF-8. I have the same problem and moreover, the navigator gif doesn't show up complaining about image missing while the same file opens fine in Windows.

[ekravche]

pretty cool software. Didn't know this existed

[fhole]

Much Thanks bro!
Your a Star!

[tylerjames]

Does anyone know if this works in Dapper?

[bodhi.zazen]

Hello,

I found xchm in Breezy in this location:

Add programs>Graphics>More programs... :-)

I second that xchm is very nice as well.

[felix_ahlner]

Does anyone know if this works in Dapper?

Works fine for me. Seems GnoCHM has been added to the universe repositories.

Many thanks for this program!

[rlozano]

did it move? i got this error?

randall@randall-laptop:~$ wget -c http://mikesplanet.net/deb/gnochm_0.9.6-1~breezy_all.deb
--01:30:26-- http://mikesplanet.net/deb/gnochm_0.9.6-1~breezy_all.deb
=> `gnochm_0.9.6-1~breezy_all.deb'
Resolving mikesplanet.net... 62.214.98.58
Connecting to mikesplanet.net|62.214.98.58|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
01:30:34 ERROR 404: Not Found.

and how about this?

randall@randall-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install chmlib
Password:
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

thanks in advance...

[Lure_Angler]

I could dld it but I got exaclty the same error msg as him, the second one...

[Lure_Angler]

I added sudo in front, and it WORKED...atta way!!...

[foureight84]

i find that gnochm doesn't display the chm files correctly. my book has buttons to go to the next page and the previous. this doesn't get displayed correctly (not at all) in gnochm. i switched to xchm and i don't get the same error.

anyways, i wanna customize the .chm icon instead of having the default unknown gnome file icon. how do i do this?

[lukjad007]

Gnochm is now available in the Ubuntu repositories. I did
sudo apt-get install gnochm
It worked very well.

[jason6g]

installed from add/remove works like a charm =) and here i thought i was lost from all my chm files =)

[monfreex]

Thanks guys!

[BobSongs]

Gnochm is now available in the Ubuntu repositories. I did
sudo apt-get install gnochm
It worked very well.True enough. I just installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu Linux, Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 and I tried that very line: it worked perfectly. None of my repositories have been tweaked yet. So this right from what's available to a new user.

Thanks.

[margazhang]

A friend of mine sent me a few non-English (Chinese) chm files and I tried to read them with gnochm and xchm - both cannot display the non-English characters. Then I installed chmsee - nothing else - and you know what? I can now read all those chm files. So if you have trouble reading non-English chm files, try chmsee.

[kennedyjch]

I've just installed ChmSee from Software Center and it works like a charm,,,