KDE3 apps with KDE4 khelpcenter / kfmclient

[Ben Burton <bab@debian.org>]

Hi,

I have a KDE3 app that I maintain, whose help menu has a couple of items
that rely on helper programs:

(i) the usual Help -> Handbook menu entry tries to open the handbook in
the standard way using khelpcenter;

(ii) there is an extra Help -> API Reference menu entry that opens some
pre-installed HTML documentation using kfmclient.

With the new KDE4 packaging in both debian and ubuntu, I was losing hope
that I could keep these menu entries working properly, but I've found
that whilst none of them work everywhere, all of them work *somewhere*.
Specifically:

- In debian sid, the kfmclient entry works but the khelpcenter one doesn't
  ("Could not find service 'khelpcenter'");
- In ubuntu jaunty, the khelpcenter entry works but the kfmclient one doesn't.
  ("Could not find service 'kfmclient'");
- In ubuntu intrepid, neither works.

Does this mean there are just some magic packages that I need to have
install that will make it all work?  (And, if so, which?)

If not, do we know how ubuntu has made it possible for khelpcenter4 to
work with KDE3 applications?  If so, might it be possible to apply that
patch to debian also?  I can work around the kfmclient problem easily
enough by patching the source code (all the app wants to do is display
HTML in a browser), but the khelpcenter issue is more of a problem.

Thanks - Ben.