AIR Help - Why is Print Sequence Disabled?

Question

Hi all,
I have experimented with a copy of a client's Help system in
both RH7 w/packager and the RH8 trial, generating output to the AIR
Help format. After generating & installing the .air package,
and viewing the new .exe help file, I notice the following: Click
the dropdown next to the Print icon and three options are listed
(Print this page, Print sequence, Print entire Help). No matter
what is selected below, Print sequence is always unavailable
(grayed out). This is the case when I generate with either version.
Am I missing something in the settings?
Thanks,
Katie
Katie Carver
Senior Technical Writer
Docs-to-You, LLC

Answer 1

Hi all
In addition to what my colleague and fellow Adobe Community
Expert Peter suggested, I read this thread and am inferring that
perhaps Katie doesn't fully understand how Browse Sequences work.
Particularly in WebHelp. So I see this could impact the operation
of things.
Please allow me to try and explain.
A Browse Sequence is merely a pre-defined path that traverses
two or more topics so that they are presented in a logical order.
You said that you created a Browse Sequence using the Auto-create
feature so I'm assuming you now have several different sequences.
This is because until you change the number of Book levels, you end
up with several sequences. If you wanted a single sequence that
spanned all of the TOC, you would need to auto-create the sequence
and specify 0 as the book levels.
That bit will hopefully help you sort the sequence creation.
Now let's address the sequence *USE*.
When you have created WebHelp output by clicking File >
Generate Primary Layout (assuming the primary is WebHelp) you see
four or five intermediate dialogs that allow you to specify
different parameters that govern how that layout is created.
Typically on the second dialog is an option for Browse Sequences.
So once you have created a sequence, you have to remember to enable
it in WebHelp in order to see it work. At this point, I'm thinking
you *MAY* have done this but it isn't clear. After all, if you have
never used them before, you may not have realized you needed to do
this step. You also may not realize how the sequence appears in
WebHelp.
So once you have defined the sequence and told WebHelp to
present it, you generate and the sequence is presented as two icons
in the "Navigation mini-toolbar". The little toolbar that sits
majestically perched at the top of the TOC, Index, Search, Glossary
and just below the main toolbar. So here's why you may think it's
not working in WebHelp. The behavior of the Previous and Next icons
will change depending on which topic you are viewing. If the topic
presented in the Topic pane is part of a sequence, one or both of
the buttons will be enabled. If the topic is the *FIRST* topic of a
sequence, the Next button will be enabled but Previous will not be.
This is because you cannot go further backward. The topic begins
the sequence. Assuming there are more than two topics in the
sequence, you click the Next button and the next topic in the
sequence is presented in the topic pane. This should then cause the
Previous button to enable and work when you click it. Once the last
topic in a sequence is presented, the Next button disables as you
cannot go further.
The bottom line here is that if you are displaying a topic
that is not part of a browse sequence, bot buttons will be disabled
and dead to the user.
Now shift focus to AIR Help. It seems reasonable to me that
if the AIR Help is presenting a topic that isn't part of the Browse
Sequence, just as WebHelp disables both the Previous and Next
buttons in the mini toolbar, AIR Help may disable the Print
Sequence feature.
Now that it's hopefully clear how this all works, please
ensure you are displaying a topic that is included in a Browse
Sequence and see if you now have an available option. I'm not
looking at AIR Help at the moment as I have no access to RoboHelp
8. So you might be seeing a bug or you might find it now works as
designed. Only you can say for certain.
Keep in mind that when you create AIR Help, I believe it has
to be installed after created in order to see it work. So just to
be on the safe side, after you ensure things are configured as
outlined, try generating to a different output file name, then
install and test that.
Whew... Rick