I experimented quite a bit with this, and what I've found is this:
If I set the APPCPATH environment variable (which is used in the -classpath option on the java command in the appclient script) to point to the help set JAR I am testing with, then the app client displays the help correctly, as formatted HTML. But if I leave APPCPATH unset then the class loader finds the help set (as it should) in the JAR file that was packaged with the app client and has been extracted to a temp file.
Clearly the help system is able to find the help, because it displays the correct raw HTML -- it is just not formatted correctly. I don't yet know exactly why that is, although I do have an interesting data point... In a small test program I used an EJBClassLoader (which is what the ACC uses internally) to find the help set, and I got the same results - the help text was found but the help system displayed it in raw form. The EJBClassLoader provides its own type of InputStream when the program gets a resource URL and then opens a connection to that URL. That's exactly what my test app client does to provide the URL to the help system. So in some way the EJBClassLoader's stream is not to the help system's liking.
I'll continue looking into this. It's pretty intricate!
- Tim
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