Merging FlashHelp Projects?

I dreamed that I could do this, didn't I?
Is there an "easy" way to merge FlashHelp projects? I've got
one project that I need to insert into two other projects.
I know I can import the files and hard code the TOC - but
that's not going to work for a long term solution - I'm going to be
doing that constantly.
Tell me I'm just missing the answer in the help files... Is
there a plug in solution? Anything??? Otherwise I'm going to end up
with the same set of files in multiple help systems - and that will
be a nightmare, too.

Hi Crystal
WebHelp and FlashHelp are basically like the mythological
Janus. They are simply two different faces on the same information.
The only real difference (aside from the fact you can merge one but
not the other) is that the TOC, Index and Search are presented
using Flash components. This has no bearing on whether you can
include Flash movies within your content. Flash movies should work
with WebHelp equally as well as they work with FlashHelp.
Cheers... Rick

Similar Messages

Merging FlashHelp Projects TOC Issue

I was delighted to discover this morning that I can now merge
FlashHelp projects!
I am running into an issue with my TOC, though. It won't
display. I've made sure my child projects have working TOCs, and
they do. But the parent TOC is being stubborn. The Contents section
is there - but nothing is listed.
Also, after reading through the help files with RH, they
suggested publishing the projects to a central location - which I
did try but it didn't work. Is this supposed to be for WebHelp or
do I need to do this for FlashHelp, too?
This is my first time trying this, so I'm probably doing
something wrong - maybe one of you pro's can help?
Thanks!
Crystal

Hi Crystal
So are you running FlashHelp Pro ouptut and publishing to the
RoboEngine? If not, I don't believe you are able to merge FlashHelp
generically as you can with regular WebHelp.
Cheers... Rick

Merging Webhelp Projects

When merging two webhelp projects (in version 7), the
subtopic is opening in a new window and the indexes are not merged.
I looked it up in the help and there is a note at the bottom that
says: "Merging WebHelp/FlashHelp projects with a pure HTML master
project or Section 508 compliant WebHelp/FlashHelp causes the
subprojects to be available only from the TOC. Subprojects will
appear as a book in the TOC. Sub-project TOC books will open the
subproject in a new browser window." That is exactly what I don't
want to happen! I was able to do it in other versions easily. What
other options do I have? All the options on the Navigation Pane
Preferred Format tab includes PureHTML. Any advice will be
great!

There's a complete tutorial on my site.

When I merge one project with another, Aperture for some strange reason, randomly scrambles the photos from the project being merged, instead of keeping them in the order they were shot. What can I do to fix this?

When I merge one project with another, Aperture 3 randomly scrambles the photos of the project being merged, instead of keeping them in the chronological order that I shot them in. What can I do to correct this?

The photos have just been dumped into a new home and need to be told how to be arranged. Go to the top left of the browser view for the merged project and select the desired sort order from the drop-down and they'll all sort according to that setting.

Merging of Projects

I'm importing MS Word files into RoboHelp to create a.chm
file. RoboHelp enables me to merge a project file with another. My
question now is: the merge file doesn't pick up any changes to the
original project file - even after compiling the original and
merged files.
Using Windows Explorer I've discovered that a copy of the
.chm file was made to the master project folder for the merging. Is
it at all possible to have changes/updated reflected in the master
project without having to re-do the merging exercise,
please?

quote:
Originally posted by:
eric haas
Is it happening because i am calling a CHM which already
contains the caller CHM or is there some other reason
Hi Eric. Try doing things this way. Create a new project with
just a single topic that you can use as an "introduction" page. Add
an index keyword to this topic. Open up each of the two CHMs you
have previously created and remove the merged references to the
other in the TOC. Compile both and merge them into the "empty"
project. Compile that project and you have a merged CHM.

Ranking feature not working in RoboHelp 8 - FlashHelp project

I'm testing RoboHelp 8, we use FlashHelp because we like the skins. I just converted my project from RH7 to RH8 and am doing testing of new features.
After I generated my converted FlashHelp project, i selected to view it on my C drive. I did a search for "wash account". The results display 18 topics but NO ranking information.
Out of curiosity, I generated the same project using WebHelp --- the Ranking works fine.
Search setup in the project layouts for FlashHelp and WebHelp are the same:
Enable Highlight Search Result (with gray color selected for highligh)
Enable substring search
What's the problem with FlashHelp in RH8 with ranking?
Will I have the same problem when I finally get RoboHelp Server 8 up and use FlashHelp Pro as our primary layout?
Please don't tell me that ranking only works with WebHelp or WebHelp Pro in RoboHelp 8.

Hi! Ranking works with WebHelp Pro when project is published using RoboHelp Server 8. You do have to make sure if you want the topic to be ranked highest that the keyword is in the topic title and sub-titles as well as in the body.
I've done no more testing in regards to ranking with FlashHelp Pro because we haven't moved to RoboHelp 8.
Hope this information is useful.
PJV

Possibility of Merging two Projects

Hi,
I have come across a situation where the users have entered two projects in system for one. They entered planning data for one of them only and both projects are in execution already. There are actual costs posted.
For some time, it remained un-noticed and now I am looking for a way to clear up this mess.
Is there any way that I can "merge" these projects or get the things "in line" after this?

All solutions seemed to be working fine, its just that I faced a problem with different fiscal years. The client has already closed 2009 financially and revenues have been locked. One of the two projects was initiated in 2009, any changes in material costs would also require MM periods to be open for past postings.
The business realizes the financial impacts this activity may have and decided to leave the projects in their state, considering them as two seperate projects.
Thank you all for your responses.

Merging two projects with Premiere elements 12.

Hello,
On my computer (windows 7) i have different directories with movie-fragments. From each directory i made a movieproject. It took a long time to trim everything. Now i have one project from 1,5 hours and another from 20 minutes. I would like to put the two projects together and then cut it into two projects. I was suprised that i could not do that. I could not copy the movie with titles in one project and copy it to the other project. Also i could not find any way to import one movie into the other. Very strange. I would think that this is a basic function the program should have.
I found out that i can work of course with the Project Asset and import the moviefragments again, but then i have to trim everything again.
I could also export one movie as for example AVI and then insert it with the Project Asset into the other project. But then i have no possibility to change the titles and transitions.
Does anyone know a way to merge two projects?????
Many thanks, Stephan

Stephan
You wrote
I used it a lot when i worked with the program i used before Premiere Elements.
Important: What version of Premiere Elements are you referring to in the above? Or, are you referring to another program that is not Premiere Elements?
No version of Premiere Elements allows the user to open one project file (project.prel file) in another.
You can copy/paste insert between two project files (project.prel) using ClipMate in conjunction with Premiere Elements. You cannot do a copy/paste insert between projects without ClipMate in use with Premiere Elements. The How To for this Windows Only feature is found
http://www.atr935.blogspot.com/2013/05/pe-clipmate-copypaste-between-pe.html
The alternative is to export your project 1 Timeline "trim" selectively to a file saved to the computer hard drive and then import that export into project 2.
In this workflow considerations need to include project 1 export format consistent with project 2 import settings.
So, we need details to explain the why not for
Also i could not find any way to import one movie into the other. Very strange. I would think that this is a basic function the program should have.
and
I was suprised that i could not do that. I could not copy the movie with titles in one project and copy it to the other project.
In the first part, what were your export settings from project 1 and your project preset for project 2.
In the second part, did you use ClipMate with Premiere Elements or something else?
What you want to do sounds very doable so we need to discover the whys to get to the solution.
Thank you.
ATR

Merged help projects and context sensitiviy

I am using RoboHelp x5 and have created a master project and
I have 3 .chm files merging into the master project. I've gotten
TOC, Indexing, and Searchable help to work. But what about context
sensitivity?\
Thanks!

Hi, again,
> 1. In my case, I don’t have bookmarks as part of
the context sensitivity
> path. I want an entire html page to display. So, I
don’t have to use the
> Dummy_Usage line, correct?
No, the Dummy_Unused entries were required to work around a
limitation in the Helpware solution. Now that I test this again,
though, the problems I encountered yesterday for which adding the
Dummy_Unused entries was the solution don't seem to be recurring.
So, probably best to forget about this for the time being.
> 2. What should the master project’s .h file
contain?
It should contain all the context help mappings for
all the help files — master and slaves. So, to the
mappings for the master help files you would append the entries
from the .h files for the slaves, like this:
// Master help mappings
#define IDH_MASTER_TEST1 1
#define IDH_MASTER_TEST2 2
#define IDH_MASTER_TEST3 3
// Slave #1 mappings
#define IDH_SLAVE1_INDEX 4
#define IDH_SLAVE1_ANOTHER 5
#define IDH_SLAVE2_INDEX 6
Likewise, the alias (.ali) file for the master project should
contain the aliases for all the help files. But in this case you
associate the topic IDs for the slave topics with the redirector
file, to which you append the appropriate IDs again, like this:
; Master help aliases
IDH_MASTER_TEST1=master1.htm
IDH_MASTER_TEST2=master2.htm
IDH_MASTER_TEST3=master3.htm
; Slave #1 aliases
IDH_SLAVE1_INDEX=redirect.xhtm#IDH_SLAVE1_INDEX
IDH_SLAVE1_ANOTHER=redirect.xhtm#IDH_SLAVE1_ANOTHER
IDH_SLAVE2_INDEX=redirect.xhtm#IDH_SLAVE2_INDEX
Then, in the redirector file, you set up a series of mappings
between these topic IDs and the corresponding topics in the slaves,
like this:
if (Code == "IDH_SLAVE1_INDEX")
URL="its:Slave.chm::/slave1.htm";
else if (Code == "IDH_SLAVE1_ANOTHER")
URL="its:Slave.chm::/slave2.htm";
else if (Code == "IDH_SLAVE2_INDEX")
URL="its:Slave.chm::/slave3.htm";
This probably sounds more complicated than it is in practice.
Once you've got to grips with how the method works, it's actually
quite straightforward.
> 3. I notice that RoboHelp wipes out or adds to the edits
I make (via
> EditPlus or Notepad) to the .hhp file – why is
that? I noticed this days
> ago so I always have a backup to replenish my edits in
the real .hhp file.
I'll have to pass on that, as I'm not currently a RoboHelp
user. Perhaps someone else following this thread can comment.
> 4. Will context sensitivity be easier with RoboHelp 7?
As far as this issue is concerned, I doubt it, because we're
using an under-the-hood technique to work around limitations in the
HTML Help format. Users of Flare, Doc-To-Help, and all other help
authoring tools have to jump through the same hoops to get context
sensitivity to work seamlessly in merged help projects.
Just to repeat what I said yesterday, I have a sample help
collection illustrating this technique if you'd like me to send it
to you off-list. Maybe that will make things a little clearer.
Pete

Can you merge AIR projects with RH 8

I have two projects, both produed in RH8, and each of which gives good AIR output. I want to merge the projects and generate one sigle merged AIR file. Is this possible?
[From my source files I can generate merged WebHelp, but when I select AIR as the output, I get no entries at all in the ToC.]
TIA
Goeff

Hi Goeff and welcome to the RH community. Unfortunately it is not currently possible to merge AirHelp output.
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Merging CHM projects

Introduction: You want a help system distributed over
several CHM files. The topic map means that you may enter via any
one of the CHMs but, once in the help system, you want access to
the complete ToC. RoboHelp does not provide this by default; here
is how to arrange it.
The underlying concepts: You have one "master" CHM which
contains the complete ToC but no topics; and any number of "slave"
CHMs containing the topics. Use baggage trick #1 to include the
master ToC in each slave. Each slave ToC must be contained in a
book in the master ToC (RH hhc bug), but you can have several ToCs
per slave (baggage trick #2). All CHMs must use the same window and
it must be a global window (prefix $global_). All CHMs must be in
the same directory at runtime (Common location).
RH hhc bug: The ToC you define in RoboHelp is stored in a
file ProjectName.hhc; when you generate the project a file called
ProjectName.hhc will be included in the CHM file.
These two files are not the same. This means that (1) if
your merged projects are not contained in books in the master ToC
you will get errors (invalid HTML tag) because the hhc file inside
the master CHM <ul> and </ul> tags are unbalanced. Also
(2) the ToC to be included in the slave CHMs must be the one
extracted from the master CHM, not the one from the master project
directory.
How baggage files work: When user runs the CHM file, its
contents are unpacked to a temporary location (MSIT-whatever).
These contents include the topics, images and also the baggage
files. The baggage file included will be whatever is in the project
directory at generate time. Not all the files in RoboHelp's baggage
list will be included (see elsewhere for quirks of the baggage
system).
Decompiling CHM files: All (?) Windows systems include the
program hh.exe which is run to display CHM files. You can also use
this program in a DOS window to decompile CHMs; the syntax is:
hh -decompile DirectoryToReceiveDecompiledFiles
FileToBeDecompiled.CHM
The directory will be created if necessary; old files will be
silently overwritten. The same functionality is available with a
pretty GUI in the HTML Help Workshop, which you can download free
from microsoft.com.
Baggage trick #1: Create all slave ToCs and generate the
CHMs; include the slave ToCs in the master ToC (File > New >
MergedProject). Generate and then decompile the master CHM (hh
-decompile master master.chm) and include the decompiled master.hhc
as a baggage file in each slave. In each slave, ProjectSetUp >
Windows > $global_window > Properties > Advanced >
Destinations > TableofContents and specify master.hhc (this file
will be available because you included it as a baggage file). Now
regenerate all slaves (see Caveat #2).
Baggage trick #2: The slave ToC will be included in a book
in the global ToC; this means one book per slave CHM. You may not
have partitioned your project in this way. If necessary, create
several ToCs in the slave; each ToC will result in a file xxx.hhc
in the project directory. Include all these as baggage files in the
slave, and generate it. When you include the CHM as a MergedProject
you can select the ToC you want.
Common location for CHMs: you can save copying by generating
all CHMs in one location (SSLs > HTMLhelp > Properties >
OutputFolder). I have a project directory containing subdirectory
Output along with Master, Slave1, Slave2 etc.
Caveats: (1) Browse sequences and Search are not globalized,
if you open a slave CHM you will only have access to the Browse and
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,
and regenerate each slave (this can be automated). (3) There are
apparently restrictions on using names containing underscores; I
have not tested this. (4) The whole process is sufficiently complex
that I recommend creating a test database to try it out.
Conditional Build Tags: I have not tested this, but it
should be possible to define several ToCs in the master and use
them as appropriate.

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?

Merged webhelp project problem

Dear Sir,
my problem is with merged Webhelp project. the links to
external topics are not active in the master project, although
these links work fine in the HTML help output.
thanks.

quote:
Originally posted by:
Peter Grainge
What Ahlam may not be doing is allowing for the fact that
cross project links have to be created one way for webhelp and
another way for HTML help. The way to do that if both outputs are
required is using conditional tags.
Actually, my project was generated as HTML help project from
the begining but for some reasons I need to convert it to webhelp,
what I did is that I generated the whole project as webhelp. I did
not know that creating links in webhelp is different from HTML
help, if it is so, could you please tell me how.

Need guidance on upgrading RH5 Merged WebHelp project to RH8

I just upgraded from RH5 to RH8 to use with a new product my company is developing. I have quite a large merged help project that I have been editing and reorganizing. I have a version published and in use but I have an updated version about 75% finished. I would like to do in RH8. Is there anything I need to watch for or recommended method to upgrading each child and then the parent? Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Hi there
There are two patches.
Help > Updates...?
Cheers... Rick
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Merging FlashHelp/FlashHelp Pro

I have published a mergedproject in the FlashHelp output
using RH7 to the RHServer 7. It merges the TOC seamless for all
projects listed in the mergedproject folder. The master is a shell
only. The html topic in there simply redirects to an intro topic
(located in a child project). The Index works fine and you can see
all the index terms regardless of the child project where they are
located. I only have 2 issues at this point:
1) The glossary term displays 2-4 definitions. It's like if
the term is found in all 4 child projects, it lists them all. Each
child project has it's own glossary. Anyone know why? I don't want
to merge the glossary to one as the child projects will continue to
be added.
2) The search function does not seem to be working. I had it
working once, but then I turned off all the glossaries
to see if I could get the duplicating definitions to stop.
When I reactivated them, the search still does not work. So not
sure there is a correlation there.
I found this thread that talked about 3 files that need to be
in the FlashHelp output:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=65&catid=447&threadid =1324503&highlight_key=y&keyword1=merged%20projects
In this thread it states that the output should have these
folders and associated file:
whdata
whgdata
whxdata
I have the last 2 in the list but not the first one whdata.
How do I get the whdata folder/files to generate (I looked in the
SSL output folder, but it's not there either for any of the
projects? And does anyone know what these files are for?
Peter -- thanks for your topic on Merging WebHelp, works for
FlashHelp 7 too. I created a master project with multiple masters
and multiple children. This is soo cool. The Parents_Project has 6
masters (containers) and 4 (and growing) children projects. The
only difference is that I had to point to the mastername.htm versus
the index_childname.htm. However, the mastername.htm calls that
index page and other than the glossary and search issues listed
above, things work wonderfully.
Sorry, I digressed again. Now back to our regularly schedule
issue.
Cindy

Peter -- let's drop the whole FlashHelp Pro for the moment.
Yes, I understand the different outputs. I am outputing FlashHelp
to our internal server which just also happens to have Server 7 on
it. I don't know that the server piece is or is not interferring
with FlashHelp. All I know is this is how we have always published
our FlashHelp to the server and that server has always had RH
Server on it. The only way we have ever gotton FlashHelp to work is
to publish it to the server in this path Adobe\RoboHelp Server
7\Servers\1\Projects.
Now maybe FlashHelp shouldn't be here, but like I said it was
the only way that we could deploy the help where everyone could see
it. Before merging we hade 4 different modules and you would just
select the module you wanted (i.e., HR or Payroll). Now we've
conditionalized by audience and merged the help. So a call rep can
see what they do both in the HR and Payroll system without having
to go out and select the other project.
So should the FlashHelp be somewhere else? I suppose, but the
most logical place was in the path listed above. Near as I can tell
there wasn't any issue with doing it this way and the help worked
without any problem. So when we upgraded to 7 we just kept it the
same way.
The only difference now is that I am merging the FlashHelp
and using the conditionalize build tags. Yes, I have published
locally (FlashHelp). There are no issues publishing, and the search
works, but the glossary does not work locally or on the server.
Cindy

Advice on "merging" multiple projects into one

RH9 webhelp.
We currently run as merged help, but for maintenance and other reasons, I would like to merge these into a single project. This is mostly due to the variety of style sheets and folder structures that resulted from many of our older topics being added using the import Word feature in earlier versions of RH. I've done this in the past with a few smaller projects, but it ended up requiring a fair amount of manual per-topic work that I'd like to avoid if possible, give the # of these that would be affected by this.
My initial questions are:
1. Is it recommended to use the import feature to add the child files into the parent? Or create a brand new project and add both parent and children files into that? Or to use some other method of adding/recreating the current files into an existing/new single project? Especially in terms of the questions below (i.e. folder structures, old/new styles, associated image files, etc.).
2. Is there a way of importing that won't replicate the original folder structure? For example, in the projects I've created from scratch, all topics are under the basic folder for that project, while in older ones - which were mostly updated by importing Word documents - many topics reside in their own sub-folders, or in what were apparently early attempts to organize topics by subject. I would like to get rid of these sub-folders and have all topics in the same basic folder.
3. Is there a way of importing images that can auto-update image file names if an existing one already uses it? Many of our older images were created using simple numbering (e.g. 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc.). Between the various projects and the various subfolders in each project, we have a lot of shared file names, and in my initial experimenting it required a lot of manual work to avoid overwriting. Is there a way in RH (or even outside, I guess) to somehow automate renaming these images during the import process?
4. Is there advice on mass-updating styles via style-sheets? I'm noticing a lot of weird display and control issues if I import a bunch of old topics and then try to apply our current style sheet to them. For example, RH will show that the new style is now associated with them, but they continue to display using the old style, or the wrong options (usually font styles and font sizes) are enforced with the update (for example RH seems to always default to want to use Times New Roman, even when neither the old nor new styles uses this font), or options (most commonly the font styles we use in the new style) will disappear from drop downs and the like. It just feels very buggy and not consistent or correct in being applied, and I'm worried about having to manually update or recreate a lot of individual topics because of this. Given we have some very ancient topics that have 'survived' 4 or 5 (or more) versions of RH, I guess I'm wondering if there's any old html code or similar that might be the culprit, and if so, how best to sort it out.
Essentially, we're kind of unique perhaps in that we don't really want to retain the existing folder structures or style guides, but my experience with the previous go-through was that RH did what it could to retain those. Which is understandable, but for us it'd be nice to avoid that and especially if there's a way of doing so without having to manually move and edit each topic and image file as they're imported into the target project.
Thanks for any tips or suggestions!

Hi there TWnKC
Personally, I'd copy the existing master, then begin importing the child topics in order to create a new project that is a combination of the former. And I do think it will be helpful moving forward to describe this as "Combining" as opposed to "Merging". Just so everyone is aware of the difference.
As for the structure, it may be whatever you like and all you have to do is ensure you import the topics into the correct folder.
Not sure about the images. That one will require a bit of testing. I might expect that if nothing is done you do run the risk of having them overwritten. So here is what I would probably do. Before importing, move images to a folder that is rather unique. That way they will be out of the way and won't get overwritten. By moving them inside RoboHelp, all references to them are updated as well.
As for the style sheets, only picking apart what is happening will truly reveal the issues. My own guess here is that you are probably seeing some inline or embedded styling that is causing things to run amok. But once you sort what is happening, it shouldn't be a big deal to fix.
I'm sure others will pop in and offer other additional advice.
Best of luck to you! Rick
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Merging FlashHelp Projects?

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