Links open in browser window

Question

I inherited a Help project in RoboHelp 6. I have both
context-sensitive topics and am developing a total Help system. I
am frustrated with several "features" of RoboHelp.
1) I can't figure out how to control how links open. I want
them all to open in a small Help window, so when a user clicks a
link, it opens in the same Help window. Instead, many of my links
are opening in a full browser window. How do I control this?
2) When I edit code in their supposedly "TrueCode" mode, my
changes do not "take" -- instead RoboHelp shows something else, and
this happens even when I edit the file in another editor. I hate
this!!! (One example: to try to fix the window-opening problem, I
tried adding Target="Self" to links, but RoboHelp removes the quote
marks)
3) Why no Back button? I saw the item about adding a back
button with JavaScript and will try it. I find the lack of a Back
button annoying in RoboHelp's own Help, which IMHO is not well
organized or well-written (am I the last person on earth to
understand that "display" is a transitive verb? Or that you don't
open a "dialog" but rather a "dialog box?"

Answer 1

I really do appreciate your help, and I want to apologize for
offending anyone. I think my antipathy to RoboHelp began years ago
with a totally different version, plus, with my current project, I
came in behind someone else who recommended the company buy
RoboHelp (at a cost of $1000), started the Help and had very little
done before she quit and they hired me. My work involves more than
doing this Help system, but I wish I could have been here to review
and recommend tools... and maybe I would have ended up with
RoboHelp anyhow. I don't want to waste the company's $1000
investment, so I just have to master this tool, even if I do have a
laundry list of complaints about it.
Your comments were considerably more helpful to me than the
RoboHelp Help. I now realize that 1) RoboHelp talks about "frames"
because a full help window (with TOC) actually uses frames, and 2)
what I want to do may not be possible.
Here is what is happening. Our application is not
Windows-based, but rather uses "portlets" -- a "page" in the
application may have 7 or 8 portlets that load independently (the
user can configure his page to have the portlets he wants). The
user can right-click a portlet to get a menu of options that
includes "Help." When the user clicks this Help option, he gets a
small single-topic window, without frames or TOC. The Help file is
given the same name as the portlet. This is the instruction I got
from the developers, who showed me how to find the portlet name.
This is all working just fine.
Here's the problem: I have links inside those single-topic
windows. When you click a link inside these windows (the
context-sensitive help associated with the portlets), the link
opens a full browser window. The small window with the portlet Help
remains. The new window does not replace the old window. What I
intended (and was trying to make happen with those RoboHelp choices
from "Display in frame" in the Hyperlink window) was for the link
to replace the previous window -- to appear in the small
single-topic window.
When I preview a topic, the links DO open in the same size
window, but maybe that is not surprising. The application may act
differently. If RoboHelp can only control how a link behaves when
the link is in a full (with frames) Help window, then maybe none of
the "Display in frame" choices will make any difference. Is it
possible that I just can't have any links in a context-sensitive
window? Or is this something the developers could change by
specifiying that windows replace windows?
Can you see how it seemed to me that I could fix how the
links should behave in the HTML? It certainly seems logical that a
simple "target="self" would work, and I did not know why RoboHelp
was changing the code. Was it to insure that the code would NOT
work (as in "commenting out" lines of code?) RoboHelp Help is not
big on explaining what its features are actually doing.
If I cannot have links inside a context-sensitive,
single-topic small window, then I need to rethink the design of my
Help system. The developers gave this very little thought and
seemed to think the context-sensitive help would be enough to guide
the users, but I can see that it is not enough. We DO need a full
(with TOC) Help system, as not all features are just a portlet.
Some features involve tabbed pages that have no "Help" link. This
is a very complex EMR (Electronic Medical Records) system, with a
lot of features that need explaining... So, at present, I am mixing
the two kinds of Help -- context-sensitive and full Help, with TOC.
The developers automatically add "Help" to all right-click menus,
so they are working on a concept of context-sensitive Help. I can
create a file for all those "help" menu items, but the help will
not be as helpful as I'd like if I can't put links to related
topics inside the window.
I have not tried RoboHelp's "related" button feature because
I prefer to just put the links in the window than have users do the
extra step of clicking a button, but I could try that if the
"related topics" pop-up would give me links that would open inside
the small window. It just does not seem acceptable ot me to hav
Help windows going outside the system to a full browser window that
leaves the previous window open.
Regarding the question about whether the project files and
output files are the same -- the output file is clearly different,
but both use the target=_self format. I don't know if we're using
the RH CSH interface. I will try to get more information from the
developers as to whether they have somehow set these windows to
work this way.
Regarding creating a new "Window" defintion--- I did look
into that, and you can specify a "one pane" window, but I don't
want a Help topic to be confined to one pane. The same topic that
is a context-senstive topic also appears in the TOC, sowhen the
user is accessing it from the full Help, the topic should open in
the right pane, like every other topic accessed this way. The
"window" definition does let you set a window size and choose to
make it resizable or not. But it is not this "window" feature that
is controlling the context-sensitive windows, since they are not
set to a separate "window" definition, so it is not clear that this
strategy would actually work.
Have I explained the problem better? My purpose is to create
useful and helpful Help. RoboHelp is the tool I've been given to do
it, and I am not experienced with this tool. If anyone can tell me
if I can get those links to open in the same window as the previous
single-topic small window, I would be most grateful. Otherwise, I
may have to rethink my whole design.
Again, I am sorry if I was overly critical and offended
anyone.