RH8 - chm TOC configuration

Hello,
I have a big book in FM9 that I imported to RH8. The TOC is used from the book-file. I generate with RH8 a CHM-file. The problem is now, that each topic is displayed in the CHM-file as one very long page. I want to display each sub-chapter on a new page. The structure in the TOC in the CHM file is already correct, it displays one book per topic and in the book one “file” per sub-chapter. How could I configure RH8 that it shows each sub-chapter (2.1 – 2.2 and so on) on a extra page?
Please see the pictures below.
http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/4414/toc.jpg
I would be happy if someone could help me!

Assuming that these sub-headings are handled via a style (e.g. Heading 3) in your FM document, you can handle the pagination via the Conversion Settings. Look in File > Project Settings and click on the "Edit Conversion Settings for FrameMaker Documents" button. In there you map the FM document styles to the RH Project styles including pagination.
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Similar Messages

Merge CHM, ToCs and CBT

Hi,
After some sweat I have a working implementation of a merged
CHM project (RoboHelp 7) making use of Conditional Build Tags
(CBTs) where the user can enter via any slave and still have access
to the total ToC, and full search facilities.
We will be using these techniques in our own shop, but I have
the idea that others would appreciate sharing the knowledge, so
what should I do with it? Describing it in gory detail will cost me
days (which I don't have) and really needs screen grabs to be
clear. I have rough notes of what I did, but they are only usable
if you have access to my demo project.
Does anyone have the time and inclination to write it up (and
check my work of course?). The project zips to 3.4 MByte and
contains no confidential information.
It is based on the techniques described
here
and
here
and I have worked out a way to make ToC entries usable for all
configurations. CBTs are only used in the master project.
I still have occasional problems with absolute paths, I wish
someone could solve that! My workaround is to edit the HHP, the XPJ
and the CPD and hope for the best.
--- Derek

Hi Joe
Just to add another twist to things here, perhaps you have CHM A, CHM B and CHM C.
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.
The twist here is that they wouldn't have to exist in the same folder. Sure, it's simpler that way, but if your developers have arranged things in such a fashion that you have CHM files in different folders, the information below may help.
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
Cheers... Rick

RH8 WebHelp TOC won't render in IE8 via HTTPS - Fix/workaround?

WebHelp projects generated with RH8 render perfectly via either HTTP or HTTPS calls to the server-hosted project in Firefox and Chrome.
The same projects render perfectly via HTTP calls in IE8.
But if the call to the project is via HTTPS, only the right pane content renders successfully. The left frame displays the Contents/Search tab in the project, but not the actual TOC content.
Does RH8 simply not support calling a WebHelp output through an HTTPS connection to IE8? Why does IE8 refuse to render the TOC through HTTPS, but it will render through HTTP just fine?
Does RH9 address this issue or is there a service pack for RH8 that addresses this issue.

we are also experiencing the same issue. we even upgraded to RoboHelp 9 and it didn't fix the problem.
Below are project settings:
RoboHelp Html v9.0.1.232
WebHelp project -> Generate
Content -> Language > English (US)
Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8)
Map Files: None selected
Navigation Tab -> Skin = Traditional Style - no skin
Preferred Format = DHTML > Pure HTML
Toolbar Buttons > TOC, Search
Synchronize Table of Contents Automatically
Results:
Left TOC Contents does not show up
Left Search does not work
One other note: It works on some XP ie8 machines and others it does not work. FYI
Please advise.

RH8 duplicates TOC structure of FM book

Hello all, when I import/link an FM book and select to generate a TOC in the import properties, then RoboHelp duplicates the entire TOC structure! That means, if there are 6 chapters in the FM TOC then there are 12 in the generated TOC in RH. Manually changing the TOC is no solution because after every time I update the import, the structure is duplicated again.
BTW, I also noticed that it is not possible to select the second option in the import properties, to add the TOC at the end of an existing TOC. This option is always greyed out. The the help of Robohelp does not explain either why it is not available.

Hi all
For what it's worth, Leon's suggestion is what I too would recommend. When I facilitate a RoboHelp class and am discussing the "Book with link" feature, I typically will suggest that this approach is used.
@Leon - I think this changed with a recent forum upgrade. Annoying, isn't it?
Standard definiton of any upgrade: Uninstall old bugs. Install new ones.
Cheers... Rick
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Clicking on TOC link in CHM Opens in a New Window

Hello RHelpers,
I have some merged help files that are structured like this:
pcdlrn.chm (this is our main help)
     pcdbasic.chm (this is one of several "child" chms that are merged below the main help's own toc)
          automationobjects.chm (and this one is a "grandchild" chm merged into pcdbasic.chm's toc)
(Note that automationobjects.chm is compiled using third party tools. All other helps are RH projects.)
I'm running into a problem with automationobjects.chm when viewed within pcdlrn.chm. If I expand the core.chm TOC until I get to the automationobjects.chm project, and then expand its TOC and click on TOC pages, the automationobjects.chm topics opens up inside of a new instance of the help viewer. I've seen this problem before, and it usually has something to do with the merged help using a different windows definition than the help it's merged into. But they're all using the same help window definition, defined as "HtmlHelp".
What's weird is that if I just open up pcdbasic.chm (the parent help that holds the merged automationobject.chm) and do the same thing, the topics inside automationobjects.chm behave properly, opening inside of the parent chm window as expected.
Any recommendations on getting this to open within a single help viewer when viewed within pcdlrn.chm, its grandparent?
I'm using Windows Vista/32 Bit OS, RoboHelp 7.
Thanks in advance,
Jared

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Merged CHMs in RH9 not appearing as merged

I upgraded RoboHelp 8 projects to RoboHelp 9. I have 6 different projects that I compile as CHMs and they are all merged to appear as one CHM to the end user. In the RoboHelp 8 generated CHMs, when I would click on one of the child projects, it would appear as part of the merged help. In RoboHelp 9 generated CHMs, when I click on one of the child projects (any one of the child projects), it opens up the child CHM in a separate pop-up.
All of the names of the 6 CHMs are one word (no spaces and no underscores).
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

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.
Sorry, but the behavior you are describing seems perfectly normal to me and the behavior you cite with version 8 seems abnormal.
Cheers... Rick
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Script Errors in TOC from RoboHelp 9

Hello, all. I can usually find the answer to my problems by searching existing threads, but I can't seem to find a solution this time. I recently upgraded from RoboHelp 7 to 9.0.2.271. I have published WebHelp locally and then checked files in to a Team Foundation Server to be deployed to a testing environment. Locally and on the QA site, the output looks fine for me and the TOC works as expected. However, other users on Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (I have IE8) get script errors when trying to click on pages in the TOC.
I zipped my local files and dropped them on a shared drive and asked one of the users to copy them to his machine and open the start page with his browser. He still gets the script errors, whereas another user can open them locally with no problems. This makes me think the problem is not in the RoboHelp files themselves, but I am not sure.
To further complicate matters, in the staging environment, a different server from QA, the TOC and Index are empty! This is obviously a separate issue, but I am stumped. This issue occurs in IE 6, 7 and 8. It does NOT occur in IE 9 or Firefox.
Any ideas?

This issue was fixed with a reply from another discussion:
Re: RH8 > WebHelp > TOC won't render in IE8 via HTTPS - Fix/workaround?
If TOC/Index/Search is not working in IE7/8/9 via HTTPS, Please try the following steps
Go to https://acrobat.com/#d=WqbdTq-2R79ToU08-zfBEw
Download IESearchIssue.zip file. Unzip it.
It will create a folder IESearchIssue. It has two subfolders
RH8.0.2
RH9.0
If you are using RoboHelp 8.0.2, go to RH8.0.2 folder.
if you are using RoboHelp 9.0, go to RH9.0 folder
Go to <RoboHelp Install Folder>\RoboHTML\WebHelp5Ext\template_stock folder and rename the file whutils.js to whutils.js.bak
Now paste the already copied new whutils.js in same folder.
Now again generate webhelp output of the required project.
Host it to your webserver and check if it works.

Merged child project's TOC not appearing in parent project's TOC

System Information
Windows XP Professional, SP2
Windows Explorer 6.0
RoboHelp X5.0.2
Generating RoboHelp HTML Help (.chm)
Issue
I had the following Help projects:
1. CombinedProductHelp.chm (parent
project)
2. ProductHelp.chm (child 1 project)
3. ProductBestPracticesHelp.chm (child 2 project)
The parent project is a very small Help project that is used
as a place in which to merge the two child projects. I was able to
add the two child projects to the parent project’s TOC in the
RoboHelp HTML TOC editor, seemingly without any problem. The
problem arose when I generated the .chm output for the merged
projects; upon opening the parent project’s .chm file, I
discovered that the Child 1 project’s TOC wasn’t
appearing in the TOC. The Child 2 project’s TOC appeared just
fine. I was able to retrieve topics from the Child 1 project using
the Search function and index – I just couldn’t use the
TOC.
After a bit of trial and error, I discovered that the problem
was the result of the file names I had chosen for the Parent
project (CombinedProductHelp.chm) and the Child 1 project
(ProductHelp.chm). For some unknown reason, if the ENTIRE file name
that’s used for a child project is identical to a PART of
file name that’s used for a parent project, the child
project’s TOC will not appear in the merged TOC. I've used
underscores to "right-justify" the problematic file name to more
clearly illustrate this:
CombinedProductHelp.chm
________ProductHelp.chm
Resolution
You can resolve the issue by renaming either file. Any ONE of
the following examples will resolve the issue:
* Insert a letter (other than
“d”) in front of “ProductHelp.chm” (e.g.,
SProductHelp.chm)
* Insert a letter between “p” and “.”
of “ProductHelp.chm” (e.g., ProductHelpS.chm)
* Insert a letter in the “ProductHelp” portion of
“CombinedProductHelp.chm” (e.g.,
CombinedProducXtHelp.chm)
In the example above, renaming the
“CombinedProductHelp.chm” to
“CombinedHelp.chm” resolved the issue; both child
project TOCs now appear in the parent .chm TOC.

Tracey,
Safari might need some of the patches that make WebHelp
behave better (to some extent, anyway) in Netscape, Firefox and
Opera for Windows.
Let's try to pinpoint the problem.
WebHelp generally loads in this order:
--Frame outline
--Main toolbar plain background, then buttons, then the image
background, if any.
--The welcome topic
--The minibar at left-- empty frame, then background and
icons, if any (browse, synch TOC and hide X)
--Table of contents background
--TOC list.
How far does the Mac browser get when you first launch
WebHelp?
If the main topic loads, and it has links to other topics. do
they work?
Can you get the Index and search to work?
Can you hide the left pane and click Contents to show it?
Still empty?
Harvey

Opening an externally-linked chm in a new window?

I have tried to get my external chms to open in a new window,
but am stuck. RH7 doesn't give me the option to open it in a new
window; all I can do is have it open in the topic frame, but then
it obviously still shows the original chm TOC in the left pane, and
not the externally-referenced chm TOC....Can anyone help?

See if
this link
helps.

Merged projects - topic-level tag problems in sub-projects

I am working on an extensive help file in RoboHelp HTML. It
consists of a master project and 15 sub-projects. Each of the sub
projects have topic-level conditional tagging, and when each
sub-project is compiled, the topic-level tagging works and the CHM
is correct in regards to what topics are included and excluded.
However, when I compile the master project, it seems that RoboHelp
disregards ALL topic-level tagging in the sub-projects. So, the CHM
for configuration A includes all sub-project topics for
configurations A, B, C, and D. The topics are in the TOC and they
appear as search results. We are not using an index, but binary
index is checked in the project settings.
The same four configurations in the sub-projects are also in
the master project, but the conditional tag expressions aren't
word-for-word identical. Should they be?
Note that the content-level tagging within the sub-projects
DOES work when the master project is compiled. For some reason, the
problem is isolated to the topic-level tagging.

I think I'm the one causing the problem - I don't think I
read your initial post carefully enough. Sorry...
I can't figure out how this is happening. When you merge
.chms, you have already compiled the 'slave' projects. The link
from the master TOC points to a slave .chm - which you say is
working correctly when opened on its own.
Since the slaves and masters are compiled independently,
there shouldn't be any interaction between the master and slave
build expressions - and if there is one, it should be excluding
more topics, not including more topics!
The typical problems people have with merged .chms seem to be
TOC issues (does the master TOC show up, or just the slave
project's TOC?) and path issues (the master can't find the slaves).
However, I did see one or two posts on this forum where the master
was pointing to old copies of the slave .chm - could you have a
"complete" .chm lurking about?
BTW, according to RH help, binary indexes are fine in merged
HTMLhelp. Binary TOCs are not. I don't think you have this problem,
because the symptoms are different, but you could take a look - the
setting is in the HTMLHelp Generate wizard. Click the [Advanced]
button on the first wizard page and look on the TOC tab to make
sure Binary TOC is not checked.
You might also do a quick search on the General
Info/HTMLHelp/RH for HTML forums for "merged .chm" - you might
recognize a symptom in someone's post that I didn't catch.
Good luck,
Elisa

Pages don't appear in HTML view

Hello,
I have a fairly large WebHelp project that I am trying to
convert to HTML help. I have made HTML Help the Primary Layout for
this project. When I generate it and preview the result, the
frameset appears, but the actual topic pages do not - the
following, standard error page appears:
Action
canceled
Internet Explorer was unable to link to the Web page you
requested. The page might be temporarily unavailable.
Please try the following:
Click the Refresh button, or try again later.
If you have visited this page previously and you want to view
what has been stored on your computer, click File, and then click
Work Offline.
For information about offline browsing with Internet
Explorer, click the Help menu, and then click Contents and Index.
Internet Explorer
Why would this happen? Is there a step I am missing?
Thanks in advance.
Todd

Hi again
I think you are misunderstanding .CHM output.
I say this because of your statement:
Part of the attraction for HTML (CHM) for our development team
is that only two files are involved (CHM, TOC).
You need to undertstand that only a single file is normally
involved that you would need to ship. Just the .CHM. Like computers
with "Intel Inside", the .CHM has the "TOC Inside". The TOC is part
of the .CHM file itself. I'm guessing here that perhaps you are
confusing .CHM output with it's elder cousin, .HLP output where you
also had the TOC external to the .HLP file. (the .CNT file)
So yes, your problems are stemming from the fact you are
trying to view the .CHM while it is in a network location. If your
end users will be copying the .CHM locally (or if an installation
application is placing them there for the user) you really have no
concerns and all should be fine.
Cheers... Rick

Content on the Books themselves

New RoboHelp user here... I understand that pages contain the
content of your help files, but can you also have a "page" appear
when the user clicks on a book? Right now clicking on the book just
opens or closes it. I've been asked to have a sort of summary for
that book topic appear when a user clicks on the book.
thanks!

Hi again
To Leon: Thanks for bringing that bit up. Appreciate the
assist! I forgot to include that. It is precisely how I advise
folks to do this in the classroom.
To Author care: While that option is certainly valid for .CHM
TOCs, I would also advise to enable a companion option. This one is
the Plus-Minus squares. But notice you cannot enable that until you
first enable the "Lines from root" option.
In the Microsoft HTML Help Workshop, the Single Click to open
Books item is actually labeled differently. There, it is labeled
"Only expand a single heading". This means if you are clicking the
book to open it, all others normally close. Unless, of course, you
use the Plus/Minus symbols to open and close them. Which is why I
always consider it a best practice to enable the other options.
Cheers... Rick

HTML Code Display - Disappearing???

(RH8, CHMs)
Hello,
Running into an issue, not sure how to fix this.
I am building a link to an external .htm file that will be included with our help CHMs. It's staying external because this allows us to update it at any time without having to update any CHM itself by re-importing and building. The html files are in the same folder as the help CHMs.
Normal hyperlinking doesn't seem to work - the CHM can't apparently see the content of topic, and may be running into an issue because it appears to be trying to open within the help screen rather than through a browser like IE or Firefox.
So I did some googling and found the following html code which works like a charm:
http://www.cybertext.com.au/tips_HTML_chm_external.htm
<OBJECT id=hhctrl
   type="application/x-oleobject"
   classid="clsid:adb880a6-d8ff-11cf-9377-00aa003b7a11"
   codebase="hhctrl.ocx#Version=4,73,8412,0"
   width=100
   height=100>
<PARAM name="Command" value="ShortCut">
<PARAM name="Font" value="Arial, 10pt">
<PARAM name="Text" value="Text:Doc name">
<PARAM name="Item1" value=",document.ext,">
</OBJECT>
The issue I'm running into is that this code doesn't display in RoboHelp itself. That is, if I view the topic in Design mode, the hyperlink text ("Doc name" in the example above) never shows. And if I go between design and html, or close and reopen, the code disappears in the HTML view as well. The code is still there - the links show up as designed (and work) whenever I compile the project. I just can't find a way of getting them to display in RH beyond staying in the HTML view for that topic after inserting the code.
Any ideas why this is happening, and what can be done?

You could try an iFrame. Much easier in RoboHelp 9 I believe but also available in RoboHelp 8.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

How can I edit an RH9 .hhc file (XML format) to include a portion of a RH8 TOC (HTML format)?

I blend output from a third-part application (Sandcastle) into an existing RH8 project. I do this by decompiling and importing the HTML, then editing the RH8 .hhc file to include the .hhc information from Sandcastle.
This worked fine until RH9 (and now RH10), where the format of the .hhc changed to XML. Can someone tell me how to approach this now? Currently, I worked around this by creating a RH8 project with the imported HTML/hhc from Sandcastle, then upgraded that project to RH9.

I decompile the CHM file produced by Sandcastle because Sandcastle output does not provide an index file (.hhc) that I can use to edit the main TOC in my RoboHelp project.
The Sandcastle HTML output files that I import into Robohelp have very intricate nesting and hyperlinking, so autogenerating a TOC in RoboHelp does not produce the desired results. Decompiling is the only way I see to obtain an index file that Robohelp will recognize and add/edit to the existing TOC.
This may be ignorance on my part, but I can't look at an HTML-based .hhc (RH8) and know how to edit it to be XML-based (RH9).
See below for examples.
(RH8 .hhc)
<UL>
      <LI><OBJECT type="text/sitemap">
        <param name="Name" value="SecurityKeywordList Class">
        <param name="Local" value="html/A077D816.htm">
      </OBJECT></LI>
      <UL>
        <LI><OBJECT type="text/sitemap">
          <param name="Name" value="SecurityKeywordList Members">
          <param name="Local" value="html/11169289.htm">
        </OBJECT></LI>
      </UL>
      <UL>
        <LI><OBJECT type="text/sitemap">
          <param name="Name" value="SecurityKeywordList Methods ">
          <param name="Local" value="html/F3929639.htm">
        </OBJECT></LI>
        <UL>
          <LI><OBJECT type="text/sitemap">
            <param name="Name" value="Find Method ">
            <param name="Local" value="html/3EA4BB08.htm">
          </OBJECT></LI>
        </UL>
        <UL>
          <LI><OBJECT type="text/sitemap">
            <param name="Name" value="FindAll Method ">
            <param name="Local" value="html/B9BC3800.htm">
          </OBJECT></LI>
        </UL>
      </UL>
      <UL>
(RH9 /hhc)
<item name="KeysetList Class" link="Unity\html\CE1C2166.htm">
     <item name="KeysetList Members" link="Unity\html\B924C78B.htm">
     </item>
     <item name="KeysetList Methods" link="Unity\html\2296b028.htm">
      <item name="Find Method " link="Unity\html\15B259BE.htm">
      </item>
     </item>
     <item name="KeysetList Properties" link="Unity\html\e98d8b4e.htm">
     </item>
    </item>
    <item name="Keyword Class" link="Unity\html\AC081184.htm">
     <item name="Keyword Members" link="Unity\html\AF52F347.htm">
     </item>
     <item name="Keyword Methods" link="Unity\html\C9317DF2.htm">
      <item name="Clone Method " link="Unity\html\2B16250F.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="Equals Method " link="Unity\html\5AA411AE.htm">
       <item name="Equals Method (Object)" link="Unity\html\EE184CE3.htm">
       </item>
       <item name="Equals Method (Keyword)" link="Unity\html\D600E80A.htm">
       </item>
      </item>
      <item name="GetHashCode Method " link="Unity\html\9A9979B7.htm">
      </item>
     </item>
     <item name="Keyword Properties" link="Unity\html\5A9776D1.htm">
      <item name="AlphaNumericValue Property " link="Unity\html\3CA3F3CF.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="CurrencyFormat Property " link="Unity\html\66CFE652.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="CurrencyValue Property " link="Unity\html\C2A5A2F6.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="DateTimeValue Property " link="Unity\html\B7358EF1.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="FloatingPointValue Property " link="Unity\html\6EA77C25.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="IsBlank Property " link="Unity\html\32367245.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="KeywordType Property " link="Unity\html\976D4B82.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="Numeric20Value Property " link="Unity\html\5A9DF184.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="Numeric9Value Property " link="Unity\html\56FE0652.htm">
      </item>
      <item name="Value Property " link="Unity\html\25A1DCBB.htm">
      </item>
     </item>
    </item>

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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RH8 - chm TOC configuration

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