Child TOC pane blank in merged CHM set-up

We are experiencing an issue with our TOC pane when viewing a child CHM in a merged set-up. The TOC appears completely blank although the index and search work successfully. If the parent help file is launched all works as expected with the TOC displayed regardless of which topic is selected from it. However if a child project is launched, the TOC does not display.
We are using the method of merging CHMs that involves adding the parent project's .HHC file to the Advanced Window properities of each child project. We have also amended the .HHP file of each child to include the relevant [MERGED FILES] section. All of this is highlighted in Rob Chandlers article on the subject and has worked in the past. Remove the reference to the parent .HHC file from the window properties and it all works but we need to this for context sensitive help calls so that the child CHM is called yet display the parent TOC.
However we were using RHX5 then and now we are using RH8 and it appears this method no longer works. Has anyone else come up against this, and more importantly found a solution?
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Hi Amber.
Thanks very much for the response. Unfortunately using conditional build tags is a must for us so we have to compile inside RH. We are very near code freeze so at this late stage do not wish to change anything drastically. The CHM is only being distributed as a backup in case any of our users don't have an internet connection.
For now I think we'll live with it annoying as it is . If you can find out about what your app is doing that would be useful to know and we'll see if we can change the app post release.
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If you want to search CHM A and have it find results that are also found in CHM B and CHM C as if they were a singular larger CHM, you would normally have them in a single folder and have CHM A (or one of them) designated as the Master.
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If you look at your RoboHelp Toolbox Pod (View > Pods > Toolbox) you should find a utility there named HTML Help Registration. When you run this tool you are able to add CHM file references to your Windows registry. And that's the key point. When CHM file references exist in the Windows Registry, pathing location is added. Many eons ago I created some instructions that helped with that. In this case, you will likely be interested in the last bit of that topic where I talk about exporting a registry key that may be used to amend other registries.
Click here to view
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Thanks
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Hi Kathe@RSA
I believe this is controlled by a TOC "Style" attribute.
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Introduction: You want a help system distributed over
several CHM files. The topic map means that you may enter via any
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Output along with Master, Slave1, Slave2 etc.
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Search of that CHM. (2) If you change the master ToC you will have
to regenerate the master, decompile it, copy the hhc to each slave,
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I appreciate this post, as getting our merged chm projects to
work together seamlessly has proven to be very difficult. The
approach we're using now is similar to what you describe here, but
results in multiple windows opening on top of each other, rather
than the TOC clicks keeping the user within the same window. I am
trying to make a few changes based on what I'm reading here in
hopes of fixing this issue; however I am having difficulty applying
the global window. Currently all of our help projects use a window
called Main. I have updated those to $global_Main, but now when I
try to click a topic in the TOC of a chm file I get this error
message: "The window name "main" passed to HH_GET_WIN_TYPE has not
been specified." Do you know what might be causing that? Is there a
specific procedure I need to follow in order to update to using a
global window?

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It is because of the way your developers are calling the help. They seem to be using direct URLs to the topics. See Calling WebHelp using URLs on my site.
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@petergrainge

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Hi there
I'm not sure I follow here. Do EACH of the CHMs involved have references to all the others? Normally you only have the master or parent with the TOC configured to look at and include child links. But each of the child CHM files has a basic TOC and really knows nothing about the others unless the parent is opened and it finds the children.
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Child TOC pane blank in merged CHM set-up

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