i understand that, and i'm nowhere near the end of the possibilities--or the knowledge thereof--of the osx distribution. i suppose the objects that don't load are a case of diff-distro. but a number of help files that live in subfolders in 5.ref do not load, even though they're there. a matter of paths? i can work around it by opening them from the Finder, but i'd think they should open the usual way. also, some help files are simply not there in their subfolders ([fiddle~] & [bonk~]. hcs suggested filing a bug report, which i'd be happy to do, only i'd hate calling something a bug that actually isn't. does anyone a way of finding out what bugs are, and what distro-related trouble? has anyone else noticed the help-file issue?