Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 20, 2026

Yelp (software)

Yelp, also known as the GNOME Help Browser is the default help viewer for GNOME that allows users to access help documentation. Yelp follows the freedesktop.org help system specification and reads mallard, DocBook, man pages, info, and HTML documents. HTML is available by using XSLT to render XML documents into HTML.

Last revised
Jul 20, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
493 w
Citations
18
Source
Wikipedia ↗
Yelp
Original authorsMikael Hallendal and Alexander Larsson1
ReleaseOctober 27, 2001 (2001-10-27)2
Stable release
49.13 / 6 May 2026 (6 May 2026)
LicenseGPLv24
Websitewiki.gnome.org/Apps/Yelp Edit this on Wikidata
Repositorygitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/yelp

Yelp, also known as the GNOME Help Browser1 is the default help viewer for GNOME that allows users to access help documentation.5 Yelp follows the freedesktop.org help system specification6 and reads mallard, DocBook, man pages, info, and HTML documents.7 HTML is available by using XSLT to render XML documents into HTML.8

Yelp has a search feature9 as well as a toolbar at the top for navigation through previously viewed documentation.10

Yelp can be accessed by typing yelp either into GNOME Shell, after pressing Alt+F2 within GNOME, or within a terminal11 using the yelp [file] format.112 The command gnome-help can also be used to access Yelp.13

Although Yelp is not required for GNOME to function, it is required to view GNOME's help documentation.14 Ubuntu also uses yelp to provide a customized help interface for its software.15

A format string vulnerability in GNOME versions 2.19.90 and 2.24 allowed arbitrary code execution through Yelp.16

References

References

  1. Haltom, Jerry. "yelp linux command man page". CommandLinux.com. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  2. Scorgie, Don (April 30, 2009). "ChangeLog". gitlab.gnome.org. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  3. "Release 49.1".
  4. McCance, Shaun (April 26, 2016). "Copying". gitlab.gnome.org. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  5. "Overview of the Yelp Help Browser". Oracle Corporation. Archived from the original on August 8, 2015. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  6. "yelp 41.0". guix.gnu.org. Archived from the original on August 28, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  7. "Apps/Yelp". wiki.gnome.org. January 12, 2019. Archived from the original on August 24, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  8. Cowie, Andrew Frederick (2004). Merging structure and sequence: Software to help teams document and execute mission critical events (Report). CiteSeerX 10.1.1.202.3756. S2CID 17334937.
  9. Schroder, Carla (2004). Linux cookbook. Beijing: O'Reilly. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-596-51750-2. OCLC 771953312.
  10. Petersen, Richard (2014). Beginning Fedora Desktop. Berkeley, CA: Apress. p. 246. ISBN 978-1-4842-0067-4. OCLC 883396549.
  11. Sobell, Mark G. (2014). A practical guide to Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-13-347744-3. OCLC 870467604.
  12. Shekhar, Vijay (2006). Red Hat Linux : the compete bible. Laxmi Publications Pvt. Ltd./Firewall Media. p. 126. ISBN 81-7008-863-1. OCLC 228137134.
  13. Fusco, John (2007). The Linux Programmer's Toolbox. Sydney: Pearson Education, Limited. ISBN 978-0-13-270304-8. OCLC 1337943343.
  14. "Yelp-42.1". Linux From Scratch. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  15. Sobell, Mark G. (2015). A practical guide to Ubuntu Linux (Fourth ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-13-392731-3. OCLC 890912722.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  16. Jackson, Todd; Salamat, Babak; Wagner, Gregor; Wimmer, Christian; Franz, Michael (2010). "On the effectiveness of multi-variant program execution for vulnerability detection and prevention". Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Security Measurements and Metrics. Bolzano, Italy: ACM Press. p. 4. doi:10.1145/1853919.1853929. ISBN 978-1-4503-0340-8. S2CID 6697258. Archived from the original on 2022-08-28. Retrieved 2022-08-27.
External links