• Native desktop application

• Works offline

• Near real-time fuzzy search

• Easy-to-type shortcuts

• DevDocs support

• Dash support (incomplete)

• Hoogle integration

• Customizable

• HTTP interfaces

• Neovim integration. Editor integration is just a HTTP request away

• The main GUI is suitable for daily use

• Docset management is usable, but needs polishing

• Packaging for OSes other than Arch Linux need to be added

• I use this application every day and happy with it

Several other features are planned but I haven’t got the time to implement or improve them, including: (in no particular order)

1. Packaging for various Linux distributions

2. Add "Back" and "Forward" navigation button to the GUI (preferably to the tab bar), like the ones in the web browsers

3. Better support for Dash docsets (the current support is incomplete and hacky)

4. Better support for Haskell docs (eg. support for individual package)

5. Add a GUI to manage the docsets (including the ability to auto update the installed docsets)

6. Integration with diigo, or send the selection to a note service, like cherrytree or Evernote

If you wish to contribute to feature 3, 4 and 5, please do contact me via Github issue before doing it.

The documentation files themselves are downloaded to your disk when doc-browser --install-devdocs, doc-browser --install-dash or doc-browser --install-hoogle is invoked, however, to display the documentation, some additional Cascading Style Sh*t or JavaScript files are needed, some of these are not packaged with the documentation files.

• When the application starts, you will see a blank screen, you can start typing to search.

• Prefix or suffix a search string with "/py", (e.g. "/pyabspath", "abspath/py"), will limit the search to the Python docset provided by DevDocs, more commands are available, see below.

• Number of tabs will peak at 10, open one more tab will close the left-most one.

• Various keyboard shortcuts are available, see below.

Create the file XDG_CONFIG/doc-browser/config.yaml and edit it.

The file is in YAML format, configurable keys and documentations can be found at:

• doc-browser --print-default-config

• or config.yaml in the root of the source repository

You can interact with this application using HTTP requests.

API documentation can be found at:

• https://qwfy.github.io/doc-browser/http-interface.html

• or, doc-browser --print-api

As can be seen from the below (slighly outdated) benchmark, it takes less than 50ms to search through 39,499 entries.

This application is written by incomplete@aixon.co, and licensed under MPL-2.0.

You can use the icon.svg in the root of this repository as the icon of this application. Permission is needed if you plan to use it for other purposes.

Many thanks to Thibaut Courouble and other contributors of DevDocs, without their work, this application wouldn’t be possible:

• This application ships with icons collected by DevDocs.

• This application uses docsets, along with the corresponding style sheets, produced by DevDocs.

Many thanks to Neil Mitchell for the great Hoogle. The Hoogle support receives helps from him. This application also ships with a little code from the Hoogle project, the modified code is licensed under the BSD license.

Many thanks to Bogdan Popescu for allowing me to use Dash’s docset. This application also ships with icons from the Dash-iOS project. If you are using Mac, please consider Dash.

Problem: On KDE, Ctrl+/ is taking too long to open the browser.

Solution: This application uses xdg-open to open the browser. Try this workaround.

Problem: The font in the documentation is too big or too small.

Solution: Tweak the configuration WebEngineZoomFactor, see the Configuration section for instruction.

Problem: HTTP summon interface doesn’t bring the window to front

Solution: Try the section Additional settings for Linux described in here.

Problem: (China users only) Installation of docsets hangs/open documentation shows blank screen.

Solution: devdocs.io or cloudflare.com is blocked by GFW, please use a VPN.

Problem: Install/uninstall some Dash docsets reports error.

Solution: If a docset has / in its name or version, (many Dash docsets do), the installation or uninstallation may not work. This problem is known from the begining, it’s just that I haven’t got time to fix it properly (without introducing un-upgradable changes). Solution: wait for me to fix it :(

Q: Why does this application display at most 27 matches?

A: If your desired match is not in the top 27 matches, then there is probably something wrong with the search algorithm.

Q: Why does this application display at most 10 tabs?

A: If too many tabs are displayed, the tab title would be hard to see on many monitors. Instead of wanting more tabs, try open another instance of this application. The number of maximum tabs will be configurable in future versions, so you can benefit from a large monitor.

• Typically, you can omit characters such as '_' (those require you holding Shift to type) from your query string, your pinky might thank you for that.