Open Maya help In chrome or your default Browser

[Anonymous]

Hi,

recently upgraded to a new workstation with windows 10 and maya 2016.

My Maya help and command reference opens in Interent Explorer. 

I would like to set this to Chome. 

I have tried settting the default browser in windows 10,

removing the maya user preference file (hoping it would reset to the current Default browser)

setting the default application for .html and .htm to Chrome.

setting .html and .htm to chrome in regedit as well

can't think of anything else to do at this point?

How or where could i point maya to use Chrome?

Thanks. Tristan

[pshwayka]

You can edit your Windows registry by running regedit.

Set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.htm to ChromeHTML

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much it worked!

[Anonymous]

Hi I'm just wondering how I go about changing the HKEY_CURRENT_USER>SOFTWARE>Classes>.htm key so it'll open the help file in Edge instead of Explorer because the help file isn't opening correctly in Explorer for some reason (blocked images, and not loading the menu correcty for some reason when I need to use the offline help file, but works fine with Edge).

Do i need to change the name of the .htm or .html key at all, or add a value inside or something?

I'd appreciate any help, because I tried following the steps above for changing to Chrome, but I must be doing something wrong, or naming the key wrong or something.

Thanks in advance

[Anonymous]

Really?  I have to change a registry value to change how Maya behaves?  Seems a bit extreme.  Wouldn't it have been cleaner to use a menu setting?  Is there such a setting?  If there is, I haven't been able to find it.

[iam]

Had this problem recently on my new laptop (Windows 10) with Maya 2017. The method above didn't quite work for me. I'm using firefox, so I had to replace with FirefoxHTML instead of ChromeHTML. When I attempted this, Maya's script editor still reported back that it was unable to open help because if could call "FirefoxHTML/shell/command/open". Some research on that let me into HKEY/LOCALMACHINE, which I discovereed that Firefox's entry wasn't simply FirefoxHTML but instead FirefoxHTML-308046B0AF4A39CB. Placing that into to HKEY/CURRENT_USER/ for HTM got it to open Firefox correctly. Changing default browser settings didn't touch it, nor did reinstalling Firefox. I'm also not so sure able editing that key, because it was orginally set to "htmlfile" which leads me to believe that it should be looking up the default htmlfile opener, not a specific software class. I believe this is a Maya bug and am going to report it as such.

[ZachGray · Accepted solution]

Found a way to fix this from directly in Maya, tested in 2018.

import _winreg

htm = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_CURRENT_USER,"SOFTWARE\\Classes\\.htm", 0, KEY_ALL_ACCESS)
_winreg.QueryValueEx(htm, '')
_winreg.SetValueEx(htm, '', 0, 1, "ChromeHTML")
_winreg.CloseKey(htm)

[iam]

This is still editing the registry. It is just editing the registry though python. It is still nothing a user should have to do to open an help file.

[ZachGray · Accepted solution]

Sorry about that. Missed namespace on KEY_ALL_ACCESS.

import _winreg

htm = _winreg.OpenKey(_winreg.HKEY_CURRENT_USER,"SOFTWARE\\Classes\\.htm", 0, _winreg.KEY_ALL_ACCESS)
_winreg.SetValueEx(htm, '', 0, 1, "ChromeHTML")
_winreg.CloseKey(htm)

Yeah, it's not ideal, but it's been easy fix for your users that solves it with their permissions.

[Anonymous]

thanks!

[ZachGray]

Can you update your answer to to code without the bug? Thanks

[tovabele]

WHY doesn't it just use the default OS browser to open websites like every.other.program?

[Anonymous]

see attachment ... not working bro ...

[tovabele]

Here's mine, I noticed the key SOFTWARE is uppercase, but that can't be it, can it?

What version of chrome are you running? 

[Anonymous]

thanks for replying bro ...

the python script execute in Maya and give success result , that change the registry key  but ... Maya cant run the help page on chrome it give me the same error message like photo 2 

my chrome version is (Version 61.0.3163.100)

wait for solving  the problem 

[Anonymous]

It's working for me after adding the key, although the Python script failed.

You may want to try the suggestion at this post:

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/V-L8qh9qbGs

[hansolocambo]

Even if Firefox is set as the default browser in Windows's Settings Default Apps, Maya opens its help in Edge (or IE)

Solution to this very annoying Maya bug :

Windows -> Start Menu -> Type : "run"

Then copy paste this :

firefox.exe -silent -setDefaultBrowser

Firefox will now be used as default to open Maya's help when called from within Maya's interface.

[laszlo_branda]

Thank you. It was super useful!

[Anonymous]

Sorry) but how I can get back Internet Explorer instead Chrome? What I should write instead "ChromeHTML"? ''IEHTML"?

[jayantbhatt07]

Any solution for mel tab just curious.