Use external browser to view matlab help pages

Question

On a Linux machine I want Matlab 2015a to use Firefox instead of the (buggy) internal browser as help browser when running doc COMMAND or pressing F1.

How can I configure this in a startup.m file?

I can not see the suggested browser option in 2015a preferences:

Answer 1

I think that unfortunately this is not possible anymore. Actually it used to be possible by shadowing the doc function (see this thread), but I've just tried (R2015a, Ubuntu) and though the doc function is indeed shadowed:

>> which('doc', '-all')
/home/.../doc.m
/usr/local/MATLAB/R2015a/toolbox/matlab/helptools/doc.m     % Shadowed

any call to doc still opens the builtin doc. The Matlab developpers have probably locked this possibility in the latest releases.

There is anyway a setting that may interest you: in the preferences you can choose to display the web-based documentation instead of the local one. So, if your local doc is broken, it may worth a try !

Best,

Answer 2

At first pass, this looks like an option only for the linux version of Matlab. See the bottom of this page: http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_env/web-browsers-and-matlab.html

Will keep an eye out...