Performance on large help projects

hello,
has anyone else experienced performance issues in a robohelp
html project of a large(ish) size? i've got a project that is about
26MB, containing about 3,500 files. recently, i'm having trouble
even getting the project open. my CPU usage spikes to 100% just
trying to do that. i'm wondering if my issue is the overall size
and number of files in the project or if it's something going on
with my actual PC. i don't experience the performance problem in
any other apps or in any other robohelp project (all of the rest
are significantly smaller than this one, though).
any thoughts? thanks.

hello and thanks for the replies. just a few more details to
maybe clarify the situation:
-we are using X5
-we are using robohelp across a network
-under "normal" circumstances opening any help project across
our network takes well under a minute
-there are few if any DHTML effects and builds tags, etc. in
the project in question; however
-a unique aspect of this project, as opposed to the others in
which we pretty much never see this performance issue, is the high
% of graphic files
-we've thought about splitting this project into a
master/subordinates structure. however, as the project itself is
already a subordinate project in a structure involving 39 other
projects, we've found that once we start to nest like this, we see
performance issues in the webhelp output, namely it takes the TOC
applet a while to load.
-i did manage to get the problem project open by deleting the
.cpd and .xpj files and then opening the .hhp file; however, now
that i'm back to trying to work in it, performance is still
agonizingly slow, and this is even after copying down to my local
drive and attempting to work with it there.
-normal output for this project is both chm and webhelp and
they're both created regularly.
does this info suggest any other possible course of action?
many thanks!

Similar Messages

Large iDVD Project (help with iMovie formats, time totals, quality)

Hi,
I am in the process of finishing up a large DVD project. I went on a six month backpacking trip, and have lots of photos/small clips to make a DVD from. I will have a main menu in iDVD with submenus for each country (Mexico, Cook Islands, NZ, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, India)
On each submenu will be around 4-5 movies of around 2-5 minutes each.
I created movies using iMovie (imported sound-less iPhoto slideshows 640x480 expored as MOV file) and added captions, music etc in iMovie. Each 'movie' is about 1-5 minutes long.
First question:
What is the best format to export these movies in? I will be adding them to iDVD. But when I export them, they are around 100-700Mb each depending on time of the movie. I used the expert settings (to Quicktime Mov) using the following settings:
Video:
Compression: Mpeg-4 Video
Quality: Best
Frame Rate: 60
key frame rate: 24
Dimensions: 720x526 4:3
audio:
format: AAC
Sample rate: 48.000Khz
Bit Rate 128
Stereo
In my iDVD project - the menu loops are maximum 30 seconds each, with the audio cut to the same length (ie. not trimmed in the menu - the actual mp3 added is 30seconds etc)
Now, big question is:
Do I have a total of 2 hours for everything? All menus,and all movies ? Is there ANY way of calculating this in iDVD or do I have to do it manually (estimate) ???
I notice with iDVD 8.0 it has a indicator of the space available etc. I have iDVD 6.0 so that doesn't help me now I guess?
What I need to ask is that - maybe using expert settings to mov files is unnecessary? What would you recommend as the export settings?
I have been working on the iMovie projects for months and can re-export them all in different format if need be, and can simply re-add the movies to iDVD. I have set up the shell of the DVD in iDVD but not added the movies yet (I have the placeholders there for them).
Anyway - hopefully I haven't blabbed on too much that someone out there can offer some advice?
Cheers and THANK YOU!
Alessandro

Best Performance: For projects up to one hour
Best Quality: For projects up to two hours
If your project is longer than one hour, you have to use Best Quality. Generally, the quality will be fine but the closer your get to that two hour limit, the more possibility you have of seeing some quality hits.
I deal with lots of long projects and generally if a project is longer than 90 minutes (specially since my projects have lots of fast motion, low light, etc) I split them up over two DVDs, keeping each under the one hour limit. That does give you your best quality option

Cannot get simple merged HTML Help project going with context sensitive help

I have built a very simple project in RH9 from scratch, consisting of a main project and a sub-project now after I have modified our large project in changing every hyphens from file and directory names over a couple of days now only to see that context help still doesn't work.
The map IDs are not visible in the main project. To test it in the example, invoke the CSH-Test (context sensitive help test) from the Toolbox, enter !SSL!\Microsoft_HTML_Help\main.chm in the Offline field and a number 57 in the ID field. In our large project I'm getting nothing (no window pops up). In this example I'm getting this mystical error box, saying HH_HELP_CONTEXT called without a [MAP] section.
Christoph

Hi William,
thanks having a look at my problem. I read in another thread today a description which comes close to the problem I'm facing.
Maybe I formed the mini sample not exactly as our problem is situated. (thus the doubled map ids you were claiming).
I will try to explain again: we have a couple of CHMs in separate single help projects. These go into their own TOCs, Index Glossar etc. like in sub1->Einzel. For the merged project we produce a chm that goes into the directory of the master (main) project, like in sub1->Primäres Layout.
Each Topic in the sub project (e.g. sub1->Erstes Thema) has a symbolic link address (e.g. "Linkadresse=det_org_angaben), which is mapped to the MAP ID via the .h file.
This all used to work that way in RH5.
Now it seems that this information between the map ID and the symbolic Linkaddress gets lost with the merge process.
I am not using the same ID (57) twice in my example. The MAP ID in the main project comes from the sub1 project (see the yellow locked MAP ID).
The simplest test is using the CSH-Test in the Toolbox giving the main.chm as the Helpfile to test and enter the 57 as a MAP ID.
The idea behind is to use one CHM later to have to open in the application. The other CHMs of the subprojects only need to be present in the application directory. Then you invoke HtmlHelp(with the MAPID),like I posted in this thread.
The method you are suggesting in mapping the ID to the topic in the main project will not work since the topic is in the CHM of the sub project.
I modified the sample project once again (somehow the baggage files were not showing) to come closer to the constellation we are using in the large project, though I'm getting the "HH_HELP_CONTEXT called without a [MAP] section" error (which does not occur in our large project).
Christoph

Can you fix your help project (via coding) after importing a topic from an output file by mistake?

Yes - I admit it - I imported html topic files from an output folder of another RH project into the help project I am currently working on (the source files were lost and I needed to bring over a lot of legacy content in a hurry). However, I completely forget that the RH output html file contains unique Java scripting that is used to render the topic properly in a browser, but that same Java Script causes havoc when you open it up in as a source file in another RH Project. Needless to say, it has caused numerous weird things when I went to publish and view my files (but, surprisingly, you don’t really see or notice them in the RH Design WYSIWYG view or preview mode).
The bad news is that it took about 2 weeks for me to notice the issue (the help output is viewed on a special console running Linux with a QT browser that I only view occasionally). The good news is that is that I figured out what the problem was (that took some hours) and I can restore my help project back to a time before I did the "naughty deed".
I am now at a crossroads - do I:
Try to re-enter all of my content from the last two weeks? (Actually, to avoid repeating the same mistake twice, I will need to re-enter the text manually and NOT cut and paste from the RH output files!)
Or locate and find the offending HTML coding in my topic files (if that is even possible)? Has anybody documented what the RH output file JavaScript code injects into your files, and what files they affect?

OK - here is the documentation of this weird issue (hopefully, you can read the htlm code in the screen images):
1. In this topic, I cut and pasted some text into the table you see at the bottom of the screen. I had to reapply the “TableBody” style to this text. After doing this, I moved my cursor to the “Keyboard" text on top. Notice that it is displaying the "TABLEBODY" style, although visually, it is displaying the correct style on screen (“Heading 1”).
2.     In HTML view, notice the addition of the class= “TableBody”> code for this “Keyboard” text.
3.   I then reselected Heading 1 for this “Keyboard” text.
4.   Notice that the class= “TableBody”> code is now removed for this “Keyboard” text and has just the proper <h1> tagged assigned.

One of the folders of Robo Help Project Manager is listed twice in Windows Explorer.

Hello Everybody,
One of the folders of Robo Help Project Manager is listed twice in Windows Explorer. One has all the subfolders and topics of it and the other has all the subfolders but not the topics. How did I get into this kind of situation? Why do I have two folders? Can somebody please answer on this?
Since my RH project is attached to Visual Source Safe (VSS), the same structure is mirroring in VSS.

Hi there
After reviewing the image I see that what you might think are two of the same folder are two different folders similar in name.
One is named Advanced_Functionality. The other is named Advanced_Funtionality (note the missing C).
I'm assuming this is the folder you are referring to?
Cheers... Rick
Click here for Adobe Authorized Captivate and RoboHelp HTML Training
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Click here for RoboHelp and Captivate eBooks

Need HELP (Project Issue) : Having 3 individual VIs, datalogger.vi, start vi, amksms.vi done. (How to run the VIs in sequence order - datalogger start amksms combine into 1 VIs? )

Need HELP (Project Issue) : Having 3 individual VIs, datalogger.vi, start vi, amksms.vi done.
(How to run the VIs in sequence order - datalogger > start > amksms combine into 1 VIs? )

VIs in icon.
how would it able to run in the sequence order:
data first, follow by start and lastly amk sms.
Attachments:
dsa.jpg ‏10 KB

How do I import Eclipse Help project/pages?

I have an Eclipse Help project with about 100 html topic pages that I created in Eclipse and organized in various folders. However, the editor in Eclipse that I am using is not very advanced and it's quite tedious to manage the help project and cannot easily create other help formats. I want to try RoboHelp 8 as the authoring environment and have it output Eclipse Help (which I hear it can do).
However, I can't find a way to easily import my existing Eclipse Help pages and folder structure. Is there a way to do this without breaking anything (like images or css) or having to go to each page and do some fixing up?
Ideally, I would like some kind of two-way transfer so I can share the project with others on my team using Eclipse to edit the topics; but I realize that may be too much to ask for.

Peter, thank you for your reply.
I went ahead and re-created the folder structure and imported the topic pages into each folder. This part seems to work fine. However, I have a few issues:
1) When I double-click on the topic pages they open in Notepad rather than the built-in editor. If I right-click on a topic and choose Edit With Design View, that works, but is quite tedious to do for every page. I also notice that if I make a change to the page in design view and save it, from then on it opens in Design View.
I see that the files that open in Design View have the following markup added:
<meta name="generator" content="Adobe RoboHelp 8" />
Is there a way to have these .html pages always open in Design View by default, at least for this project?
2) I used the instructions here to create Eclipse Help: http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/12/how_to_generate_eclipse_help_from_robohelp.html
When I bring up the pages in Eclipse, the ones that I edited using the Design View seem OK (so far), however the ones that were imported from original Eclipse Help format now show this error when I try to view them:
An error occured while processing the requested document:
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException: Content is not allowed in prolog.
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.help.internal.dynamic.DocumentReader.read(DocumentReader.java:56)
at org.eclipse.help.internal.dynamic.XMLProcessor.process(XMLProcessor.java:49)
at org.eclipse.help.internal.xhtml.DynamicXHTMLProcessor.process(DynamicXHTMLProcessor.java: 66)
at org.eclipse.help.internal.webapp.servlet.DynamicXHTMLFilter$1.close(DynamicXHTMLFilter.ja va:81)
at java.io.FilterOutputStream.close(Unknown Source)
at org.eclipse.help.internal.webapp.servlet.FilterHTMLHeadAndBodyOutputStream.close(FilterHT MLHeadAndBodyOutputStream.java:311)
Any idea why I am getting this error? I am using the EclipseHelp.jsx that came with RoboHelp 8.0.0.203 (incidentally, the "latest" script file pointed to in the link above actually has an older copyright date so it would not seem that it's the latest). Would solving #1 solve this issue?
3) I set a default topic for my books, which works fine in Web Help. But when I try to view the book in Eclipse, it displays a Contents list instead of the default topic.
Any idea how to fix this?
Thanks in advance,
Dan

Images in my FrameMaker 10-sourced Robohelp Web Help project are turning out as blank JPEGS appearing as blank spaces in the final output. How can I fix this?

I'm attempting to create online help sourced from a FrameMaker 10 book using Robohelp 9 and Web Help (primary layout).
The text is interspersed with numeorus small icons which, in the FrameMaker documents, are .bmp images inserted into anchored frames in the lines of text.
Most of these icons were imported by reference into the FrameMaker book's chapters. Some were copied from another FrameMaker book and pasted into the present book.
Many of these images are turning out blank in the finished Help project.
Robohelp seems to convert these images into JPEGS.
In the source FrameMaker book, the images which appear OK in the Help project have Object Properties including: Facets: FrameVector JPEG ... Referenced File: No File
The images which appear blank have different object properties there: Facets: DIB ... Referenced File: (address of the image's source file)
How can I fix this and make all of the images appear in the Online Help?

Sorry, Jeff. I missed the key word in your instructions. Well, I did the import and still no luck. I'm getting the exact same results with the same images. (In some cases, I'm even getting hidden conditional text from the FM document body showing up in the image's frame instead of the image! See below.) This is bizarre behavior, but it's not new with the import. It is happening both in the linked and imported WebHelp with the same exact images. (Just another piece to complicate the puzzle.) So we have some jpeg images that are blank, and a few that are glitchy. From what I can tell, the commonality, besides the fact that all these new images are in jpeg format instead of gif format, is that all the blank and glitchy images are in a text inset. I'm beginning to think maybe RH just doesn't support text insets at all.
Arnis, I'll have to ask my colleague how she created the images next week when she's back from vacation. I have no clue if there are any differences between the jpegs and why some are showing up correctly. What do you mean by "compression type or level?" Are you asking about the resolution (high, medium, low) she chose when saving the images, or which program she used to do the screen capture and editing? (We have Adobe Photoshop CS5 and FM 11).
My next step is to copy-paste all the content from the text insets into my FM document (in the book I am linking) and re-render to see if that solves the problem. It will make single-sourcing impossible because I'll have to copy-paste the new content and images my colleague creates into my document each time we do an update, but oh well.
Here is an example of a glitchy image in RH:
And here is what it looks like in FM:
So bizarre!

Best practices for large ADF projects?

I've heard mention (for example, ADF Large Projects of documentation about dealing with large ADF projects. Where exactly is this documentation? I'm interested in questions like whether Fusion web applications can have more than one ViewController project (different names, of course), more than one Model project, the best way to break up applications for ease of maintenance, etc. Thanks.
Mark

I'd like to mention something:
Better have unix machines for your development.
Have at least 3 GB of RAM on windows machines.
Create all your commonly used LOVs & VOs first.
If you use web services extensively, create it as a seperate app.
Make use of popups, it's very user friendly and fast too. You no need to deal with browser back button.
If you want to use common page template, create it at the beginning. It's very difficult if you want to apply it later after you developed pages.
Use declarative components for commonly used forms like address, etc.
Search the forum, you will see couple of good util classes.
When you check-in the code, watch out some of the files don't show up in JDev like connections.xml
Make use of this forum, you will get answers immediately from great experts.
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jdev/collateral/4gl/papers/Introduction_Best_Practices.pdf

Can RH let me insert a custom/personal icon for my published HTML Help project?

Just wondering if there's a setting inside of RH8 for setting
the icon in the browser URL bar?
(for example, there's a little red and white icon with barely visible "Adobe" in the browser address bar above...or facebook has the blue square with the white f in it). What if I have a fave icon; how do I associate it with my help project (rather than the blue e ...)
Thanks.

Hi there
These are known as "Favicons". Unfortunately there isn't anything RoboHelp will do to assist you with them. There has been some recent discussion about them that you will likely find useful. Try the link below.
Click here to view
Cheers... Rick
Helpful and Handy Links
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Not a recognized Help Project File

I need to address two problems which together have me 'dead
in the water'.
First, I am unable to open any RoboHelp HTML Project file.
Attempting to do so produces the following message: The file
"filename.xpj" is not a recognized Help Project file and cannot be
opened.
Second, every attempt to create a new Project produces the
following result: An Adobe RoboHelp 7 message box opens, explains
the RH7 has encountered a problem and needs to close - sorry for
the inconvenience. The 'more information' link identifies
utilities.dll as the module name - I tried registering the dll but
it has no entry point. Anyway, clicking OK crashes RH.
I've tried searching for the first condition but the forum's
search engine is down. Any help is appreciated.

This was a problem seen in an earlier version and the cause
was never really identified. However, some solutions were found and
these are in Snippets on my site.
Haven't heard of it for a while now though and certainly not
with RH7.

Import Web Help Projects

I have multiple Web Help Projects that I want to convert to
one HTML Project so that there is only one project to manage. I
don't want to link from a master project, I want it all embedded in
the one projectso that I end up with one .xpj Help file. It is easy
enough to import one but not the 5 that I have. I want all the map
files for each hpj project to be imported as well. Is there a
simple method for this? Thanks in advance.

Given the small number of topics, it would seem easier to
have one project provided you can get the layouts you need.
The problem is that the CPD for the all in one project has to
know about all the topics and to do that, you have to import them.
There aren't many and you can import all the topics in a folder in
one go so it shouldn't take that long.
Your cross project links will be broken so you'll have an
exercise on fixing that.
The map files can probably be manually merged in Notepad or
similar. Similarly with the TOC and Index files.
Take a copy of the project and run some tests. It will need
some tweaking. Only you can decide whether it is worth the effort.

Need help with a Context Sensitive Help project

Hey everyone,
I'm the RoboHelp administrator around here - I've done some
RoboHelp projects and created the procedures, stylesheets and
templates for our company's WebHelp, WinHelp 2000, and JavaHelp
projects, but now I'm sort of the consultant for the content
authoring team that creates the help systems. I think I need to
call in some help from the forum about a project I'm consulting on.
Here's the situation: A project team here thinks they want
field-level help to support a web-based application. I've told them
"That's fine, it's possible, just don't demand that the help author
create topics for EVERY field, even the obvious ones like "Name",
"Address", "Zip", etc, since there is very, very little value in
doing that." We already have a very old help system that is being
CONVERTED to WinHelp 2000 (from a "mocked-up" version of WinHelp)
that did just that - every field in every screen was a separate
topic, even if it wasn't useful. Every topic was essentially "This
information goes in this field". As a result, we abandoned creating
an Index, since we had about 27 entries for "Name", 13 for
"Address1", 15 for "Address2", etc.
Well, I just heard back yesterday that they totally ignored
my suggestion and they want to go ahead with the "all help for all
fields" idea. I still think I have a chance of convincing them to
choose context-sensitive topics wisely, if it can present my case
clearly and be persuasive. I just found John Daigle's article about
context sensitive help (
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/robohelp/articles/context_help.html)
and I'm looking at it now (very well done, by the way - thanks
John!). It looks like, from first glance, that it might convince
that project team that "Whoa, this context-sensitive thing is more
than we bargained for", which is what I want them to think, since
they have very limited resources and a help author that is VERY new
to RoboHelp and WebHelp. I personally have never built a
context-sensitive help project with different windows, but I have
built several projects using conditional builds.
What does everyone think of this approach?
Thanks,
Jim

Here's a nice, convincing argument that I just thought of -
the only thing wrong with it is that I don't know if it's true or
not.
Does the end user's browser cache the .htm files for the help
topics that are grabbed from the server? If so, consolidating the
field definitions lessens the server traffic.
(Always get the server guys on your side - everywhere I've
worked, they wield a big stick!)
Also, I'm a big believer in functional help topics, but I
have compromised for some clients and included one-per-screen
conditional topics with the field labels. John, I wish I had known
about the map numbering trick back then - I would have loved to
give them F1 help.
Elisa

CSS renaming for a web help project

Hi all,
I can easily see how to rename a master page for a robohelp project, but how does one go about renaming .css stylesheets name for a web help project please?
i.e
before... name1.css
after... name2.css

If you just want to rename your CSS file you can do this by right clicking on it in the Project Manager tab and selecting the Rename menu item. However if you want to create a copy and call the copy something else, you'll have to do this manually in Windows Explorer. Once you've done that, just assign the new CSS file to your topics via the Topic Properties.

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

Performance on large help projects

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