Installing help on your computer

You can install help content on your computer and access it locally from your product client. To do so, download a compressed file that contains a customer installable IBM® Knowledge Center and the product help from the help download site or from an internal site that is configured on your network by an administrator. Extract the contents on your computer and start the IBM Knowledge Center.

About this task

By default, the product accesses help content remotely from the public IBM Knowledge Center. You can install a local version of the IBM Knowledge Center that contains only the help for your installed product on your computer.

Procedure

  1. To download a compressed file that contains the customer installable IBM Knowledge Center and the product help:
    1. In a browser, go to the help download site.
    2. In the kcci_product_help directory, download the compressed file that corresponds your installed product and its version.
    Note: An administrator can download the compressed file and place it on a server on your network. In this case, copy the compressed file from that server to your computer.
  2. Extract the contents of the compressed file on your computer. If you receive an error that indicates that the path is too long when you extract the compressed file, move the file to a directory with a shorter path. Use a directory such as C:\kcci and extract the file there.
  3. Read the following files in the extracted KnowledgeCenter directory:
    • termsofuse.html (Terms of Use statement)
    • NOTICES.txt file
  4. Start IBM Knowledge Center by running one of these scripts from the KnowledgeCenter/bin directory :
    • Windows systems: startKC.bat
    • UNIX systems: ./bin/startKC.sh

    If a Java error occurs when you start the server, see No JAVA_HOME defined error.

  5. After the server is started, IBM Knowledge Center is available at this default URL: http://localhost:9090/kc. To access this local help from the product client, you must add this URL as a new help content connection in the client Help Preferences. See Changing help content connections.

    If port 9090 is in use, the help uses another port when it is started. This port value is briefly displayed in the IBM Knowledge Center startup window. After the window closes, the port number is recorded in this file: KnowledgeCenter/logs/port.properties.

    Note: To ensure that the local IBM Knowledge Center is available each time you use the product, you can create a shortcut to the startup script on your desktop and run it before you open the product client.
  6. For more information on starting, stopping, and configuring the IBM Knowledge Center, see the instructions in this file: KnowledgeCenter/knowledgecenter_instructions.html.

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