Subject: bug#56676: SuperCollider's Help Browser doesn't display text (possible QtWebEngine issue?)

From: Gabriel Wicki <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2022 01:33:16 +0200

Hi!

I've noticed that when starting SuperCollider IDE (with the scide
command) the Help Browser (which is the panel on top on the right side
with vanilla/no configuration) doesn't show any text.  IIRC
SuperCollider's documentation is HTML documents (you can also browse it
online [1]) displayed through some QtWeb-widget (I am no expert in Qt).

My first question: is this reproducible?  Or do others also see no text
in the Help Browser?

I have tried adding qtwebengine as an input and passing a configure
flag, but this didn't change the issue:

diff --git a/gnu/packages/audio.scm b/gnu/packages/audio.scm
index bab9d66a2d..975690b72f 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/audio.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/audio.scm
@@ -3183,6 +3183,7 @@ (define-public supercollider
                            "-DSC_QT=ON"
                            "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release"
                            "-DFORTIFY=ON"
+                           "-DSC_USE_QTWEBENGINE:BOOL=ON"
                            ;; "-DLIBSCSYNTH=ON"   ; TODO: Re-enable?
                            "-DSC_EL=OFF") ;scel is packaged individually as emacs-scel
        #:phases
@@ -3234,6 +3235,7 @@ (define-public supercollider
                   qtdeclarative
                   qtsvg
                   qtwebchannel
+                  qtwebengine
                   qtwebsockets))
     (propagated-inputs                  ;to get native-search-path
      (list qtwebengine))

I'm more than happy to hunt that bug down but am grateful for any
pointers to where the issue could possibly originate.

gabriel

[1] https://doc.sccode.org