There are a wide variety of possible browsers to use for displaying
the online HTML help available with IDLWAVE (starting with version
5.0). Since IDL v6.2, a single cross-platform HTML help browser, the
IDL Assistant is distributed with IDL. If this help browser is
available, it is the preferred choice, and the default. The variable
idlwave-help-use-assistant, enabled by default, controls
whether this help browser is used. If you use the IDL Assistant, the
tips here are not relevant.
Since IDLWAVE runs on many different system types, a single browser
configuration is not possible, but choices abound. The default
idlwave-help-browser-function inherits the browser configured
in browse-url-browser-function.
Note that the HTML files recompiled from the help sources contain specific references to the ‘Symbol’ font, which by default is not permitted in normal encodings (it’s invalid, technically). Though it only impacts a few symbols, you can trick Mozilla-based browsers into recognizing ‘Symbol’ by following the directions here. With this fix in place, HTML help pages look almost identical to their PDF equivalents (yet can be bookmarked, browsed as history, searched, etc.).