Python Help Window Feature Addition - Use ConfigService for Docs Path

[darshdinger]

Description of work

Summary of work

Modified the Python Help Window (HelpWindowModel) to retrieve the local HTML documentation path from Mantid's ConfigService using the existing docs.html.root property. This removes the need to explicitly pass this path as a parameter when creating the help window components.

This change utilizes the existing docs.html.root configuration property within Mantid's ConfigService, centralizing the definition of the local help documentation path and simplifying the Help Window's interface and instantiation. It makes the Help Window consistent with how other parts of Mantid locate configured resources.

Issues #37248

Here is the EWM link: EWM 10007

Further detail of work

• Removed the localDocs/localDocsBase parameter from HelpWindowModel.__init__, HelpWindowPresenter.__init__, and the show_help_page function in helpwindowbridge.py.
• Removed the corresponding --local-docs command-line argument and MANTID_LOCAL_DOCS_BASE environment variable handling from helpwindowbridge.py.
• In HelpWindowModel.__init__, mantid.kernel.ConfigService is now imported at the top level and used to retrieve the path:

  config_service = ConfigService.Instance()
  raw_path = config_service.getString("docs.html.root", True)

• Error handling (try...except) around the ConfigService import and calls ensures robustness in environments where ConfigService might not be fully initialized or the property is absent/empty.
• If a valid directory path is retrieved from docs.html.root, the model configures itself for "Offline Docs" mode using that path. Otherwise, it defaults gracefully to "Online Docs" mode.
• Updated test_helpwindowmodel.py significantly to reflect the removal of the localDocsBase parameter and to use unittest.mock.patch to simulate various return values from ConfigService.Instance().getString("docs.html.root", True). This allows testing of different scenarios (valid path, invalid path, no path found) without requiring a live ConfigService.

To test:

In order to test this, you need to first build mantid workbench with the python help window enabled. Follow these steps in order to achieve this:

1. cmake . -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DENABLE_QTASSISTANT=OFF
2. ninja all docs-html
3. ./bin/lauch_mantidworkbench.sh

Following this use the command ./bin/launch_mantidworkbench.sh to launch the workbench.

Within the workbench window navigate to the Algorithm Manager window and select any algo:

Double left click to open the algo menu:

Press the "?" button and to launch the python help window and notice within the debug logs that ConfigService is being employed to retrieve the local docs location:

HelpWindowModel-[Debug] Retrieved 'docs.html.root' from ConfigService: '/home/dzj/mantid/build/docs/html'

---

Reviewer

Please comment on the points listed below (full description).
Your comments will be used as part of the gatekeeper process, so please comment clearly on what you have checked during your review. If changes are made to the PR during the review process then your final comment will be the most important for gatekeepers. In this comment you should make it clear why any earlier review is still valid, or confirm that all requested changes have been addressed.

Code Review

• Is the code of an acceptable quality?
• Does the code conform to the coding standards?
• Are the unit tests small and test the class in isolation?
• If there is GUI work does it follow the GUI standards?
• If there are changes in the release notes then do they describe the changes appropriately?
• Do the release notes conform to the release notes guide?

Functional Tests

• Do changes function as described? Add comments below that describe the tests performed?
• Do the changes handle unexpected situations, e.g. bad input?
• Has the relevant (user and developer) documentation been added/updated?

Does everything look good? Mark the review as Approve. A member of @mantidproject/gatekeepers will take care of it.

Gatekeeper

If you need to request changes to a PR then please add a comment and set the review status to "Request changes". This will stop the PR from showing up in the list for other gatekeepers.

[dlcaballero16]

Tested as described and verified docs were obtained through ConfigService.

[peterfpeterson]

I have some questions on how the behavior works on getting the local path set when there is or isn't an exception. I think it needs some comments or a little bit better of organization to clarify what is going on.

As is, it looks like it is "always" online, but it sets the base URL to be the offline version.

[peterfpeterson]

One more changes for rhobustness:

1. Build the offline docs
2. remove docs/html/index.html
3. start the main help page

It would be helpful to add a warning/error message that the HTML file is not found.

Otherwise the code looks good.