Starting Pd like this "$ LANG=C pd" didn't solve the error, the plugin~-help file was still white. But changing these settings did solve the problem:
in ubuntu studio/Settings manager > Language support > Regional Formats : display numbers, dates and currency in the usual format for: English (UK)

On 03/08/2017 03:34 PM, Hans Roels wrote:

Hello,

When I try to open the plugin~-help file from the Pd browser, the whole
window is white and all objects in the file are invisible. This is the
error message:

(Tcl) UNHANDLED ERROR: bad screen distance "-75,000000"
    while executing
"$tkcanvas create text $x $y -tags $tags -text $text -fill $color 
-anchor nw -font [get_font_for_size $font_size]"
    (procedure "pdtk_text_new" line 2)
    invoked from within
"pdtk_text_new .xe88180.c {.xe88180.tf3b1d0 msg text} -75,000000
538,000000 {pddp} 10 black"
    ("uplevel" body line 4)
    invoked from within
"uplevel #0 $docmds"(Tcl) UNHANDLED ERROR: bad screen distance "86,000000"

this looks like a problem with locales.
i guess you are using Pd in a Belgian (or similar) locale, and when
creating a [plugin~] object (done by the help-patch), tcl suddenly
starts formatting floating-point values with "," as the decimal mark
rather than ".", breaking everything.
i remember similar things when working on [pdgst].

try forcing the locale of Pd to "C", with something like:

$ LANG=C pd

Is this perhaps related to the screen resolution of my laptop?

i don't think so.

fsa,rd
IOhannes

_______________________________________________
Pd-list@lists.iem.at mailing list
UNSUBSCRIBE and account-management -> https://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list