WebHelp Output Files

Greetings,
I am in the process of creating Webhelp for an application
that will run in a browser. I am used to dealing with a single
compressed .chm file rather than a folder of files.
Because the help files will also be residing in the actual
product, we have a really need to limit the size of the output
files for storage reasons. Any hints or ideas? Thanks in
advance.

Hi KAMcintyre and welcome to our community
Sorry, but you will waste more time figuring out how to pare
things down than you will just copying the files to where they
should be.
I'm not sure of any product that keeps things in a single
file and is intended for web use. Hopefully others have a
suggestion.
Cheers... Rick

Similar Messages

WebHelp Output files distribution and deployment regarding

Hi,
I am just starting to try, learn RH7 to generate WebHelp.
I successfully did a very simple and basic test project and
our developer displayed the topic help on pressing F1.
Good.
Our application is a backoffice payment system. Currently the
application is deployed on the Application Server which is
Macromedia JRUN 4 with the OS - MS Windows 2003 std edition SP1.
My compnay is planning for the following:
The application shall be deployed on the Application Server
Weblogic 10x on a UNIX box (could be IBX AIX/HP UX).
The application is bundled as .WAR.
Could you please clarify this for us?
- Should the WebHelp output folder be bundled along with the
above .WAR?
- Can the Help files reside on Application server or the Web
Server (only the Help not the application) and
can still work effectively? (We prefer the Help to be on the
App Server tho')
Well, if I am not clear, I'll be glad to get you more
details.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Radha Renganathan

Hi Radha.
Don't get confused between the generated and the published
output. The published output is the actual output required to be
placed where your users will access it. The location is defined in
the final part of the WebHelp single source layout. The help can
reside just about anywhere. You may want to check out our resident
WebHelp juru Peter Grainge's
website
which has all the options on calling webhelp plus all manner of
other stuff.

Server/browser requirements for WebHelp output files

What are the UNIX server and browser requirements in order to
display a WebHelp project output file correctly?
When I generate the primary layout, I am not selecting 508
format, and I select Java Applet as the preferred method for the
Navigation Pane (checking the radio button for DHTML > Java
Applet > Pure HTML as the order of preference.
When viewing the help project on the UNIX server through
Mozilla, the page appears to load and reload, load and reload.
Sometims pressing Esc. stops it and you can view the TOC and
content pane. The way around this is to generate Pure HTML only,
but then the index and the glossary become very difficult to use.
Robohelp Webhelp descriptions claim to work on all platforms
and in all browser types. What requirement are we missing on our
UNIX server so the project can display correctly?
Thanks in advance for your time and trouble. :-)

Hi GEWB,
Here are some more details--
Generate Webhelp output setup:
Use lowercase filenames (recomm. for UNIX)
Toolbar buttons: Content, Index, Search
Navigation: Add breadcrumbs links
Additional options: Enable Highlight Search results, Synchronize TOC automatically
Navigation Pane preferred format: DHTML > Java Applet > Pure HTML
Optimize speed for: Web site
Q: how are you setting up your Linux to open the default project page?
A: I use Linux only to launch the webehelp output.
Q: Are you opening the GENERATED project default page or trying to open the project source files?
A: I am trying to open the generated project default page. I copy the Webhelp folder to a Linux machine and launch the index.html page to see the output.
Q: Why are you replacing the foreward-backward slash?
A: In Linux '\' is not supported for hyperlinks/filepaths. Therefore I changed the backward slashes to forward slashes.
The scenario:
When the project files have filepath such as ../../doc/xyz/,
when I view in Windows (IE)- I can access the link
when I view in Linux (FF)- I see broken link with error message somewhat like "cannot find ..\..\doc\xyz\". (Note the changed usage of slash)
This indicates that the generated files changes the forward slash to backward.

Rebuild source files from Webhelp output?

Today I deleted an unwanted *.css file from my RH9 project with the result that 300 images files were suddenly deleted. Subsequently, I reimported the source Word files to create a new image folder. The result of this, even though I cleared the selection boxes on the "Do you want to over-write" prompt, was that RH9 proceded to overwrite the topics anyway. So I have now lost 20 reformatted topics.
Why these things happened is not my main concern right now, though clearly it indicates that RH has some serious issues in file handling. (It has happened before).
Before RH9 deleted and over-wrote all my topic files, I generated webhelp output, and I want to know if I can recreate those topics to my project somehow using the latest Webhelp output files.

Hi Michael
I think what you are seeing is typical behavior when you have a linked Word document. And therein lies a bit of an issue. Certainly RoboHelp allows you to link a Word document, but Word and HTML are a bit like mixing oil and water. Word creates things you intend to print. HTML is intended for screen display. Mixing the two results in a bit of a kludge.
So first, let's try and understand how RoboHelp deals with Word this way. When you link a Word document, you will get a real honest to goodness file folder that is named identically to the document. In the RoboHelp project manager, the icon doesn't look like a folder. It looks like a Word logo with some arrows superimposed that will indicate the status.
Inside this folder should be your topics that were created based on the Word document.
I know you said you didn't want the CSS, but the process of bringing Word in will *ALWAYS* create a .CSS file. You may as well learn to simply accept it. The thing is, you don't have to use it. Just ignore it is there. You are free to associate a single CSS of your choice with your files either before or during the generation/compilation process.
The folder with the name matching the document and ending in _files is normally created when you convert Word to HTML. That's normally where Word will store and reference any images that were found in the document. That's a common Microsoft Word behavior. If you wish to confirm this, just close everything and open Word only. Create a document with some images then choose to save the Word document as HTML and look at what you end up with.
It's surprising to me that simply deleting a .CSS would blow any images away. Perhaps your Word document was created in a manner where the images are somehow referenced using CSS?
Cheers... Rick
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Glossary hotspots not working in output file

I've recently upgraded to RoboHelp 8. I have a project that's well over 10 years old contains 1652 topics.
In the WebHelp output file, my glossary entrys look like regular text and the hotspots do not work.
The hotspots look fine in Design view, and they work when I preview the topic. But when I generate the project and view the Output file they do not work.

Hi again
Okay, here's how I'd test. Edit one topic that's easy to find in the output. Add a Glossary term by clicking and dragging from the Glossary editor to either just a spot in the topic or to some selected text. Re-generate and see if that survives the trip. If it doesn't, it means you have some aspect of the generation process failing.
Perhaps also try creating a new layout and generate using the new one. See if that makes a difference.
Cheers... Rick
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In RoboHelp 11 Responsive HTML5, is it possible to have 2 different language outputs in one generated output file?

In RoboHelp 11 Responsive HTML5, is it possible to have 2 different language outputs in one generated output file, similar to WebHelp where the use can select the language from a drop-down list? In Webhelp output you could create multiple Content categories. Is there something similar with the responsive output, or am I forced to have a completely separate set of output files for each language (for example, English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic)?

As Rick, mentions, there's no default way.
Having said that, there's nothing stopping you from doing it yourself. You can add a kind of language selector to the layout and set that for every html5 output. With some JavaScript, you can have the user switch between your outputs. It would look like content categories, but you'll have build it yourself.

Symbol font not displayed correctly in WebHelp output

I have TCS 2. I have a character format that uses the Symbol font. It displays correctly in FM and in the RH Design Editor. But in the WebHelp output, the Symbol font displays as Arial. What did I do wrong?

Hi,
What browser are you using? Most probably, your browser does not support the symbol font out of the box and therefore defaults back to Arial. My guess is that it will work on IE, but not on other browsers. This is because Symbol isn't a default web font.
To overcome this, you must use the @font-face rule in your css and provide the font file as a baggage file in your project. For more info on @font-face, see: http://www.font-face.com/.
Greet,
Willam

Is it OK for Spanish characters not to be entities in RH8 webhelp output?

We are using RoboHelp 8. We have some Spanish words in our English-language help; these Spanish words use some of the accented characters that aren't present in English. My coworker tried using HTML entity codes to enter these characters in the code view, but she noticed that RoboHelp changed these to the actual Spanish character as soon as she switched back to Design view, and this is how they are in the generated webhelp HTML files as well.
I think this is not a problem. The UTF8 declaration appears in the webhelp output, and the characters seem to appear correctly in the browsers I've tested. Am I correct? Should the output work in older browsers as well?
Thanks,
Tammy

RoboHelp supports 35 languages so the fact that the Design Editor supports those entities does not surprise me.
The following is from the RoboHelp Tour that can be accessed from my site.
RoboHelp 7 introduced the ability to work with 35 languages. In RoboHelp 8, you can now define a language for the project, a language for a topic and a language for a paragraph.
The search works with all the supported languages you use in the project.
There is a lot more information in the help topic "Authoring content in multiple languages".
It sounds like you are just including the odd word so the above may not be relevant, I just wanted to make sure you are aware of this.
I can't help you on how older browsers will handle this but my thinking is they should, they are just HTML entities after all.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Alt text not appearing in WebHelp output

We are using FrameMaker 10 and RoboHelp 9 to output as WebHelp. In the FM files, I have added alternate text to anchored frames containing images. When I update the linked FM files in my RH project, the screen tip is empty for these images, but when I look at the HTML source for the topic, it shows that the alt text is there:
<p class="widegraphic"><img alt="Coach completes form and can either submit now or save it as a draft, edit it, and submit it later. After submit, employee receives task or alert notification, and coach receives task notification. Coach can still edit form at this point. Employee acknolwedges form and completes tasks, and employee task changes to complete. Coach completes task, and task status changes to complete. Lastly, coach receives alert or message notification. "
id="image2" src="using_bpl_form00003.jpg"
style="margin-bottom: 6pt;" border="0" /> </p>
When I preview the topic in RH and hover my mouse over the image, the alt text appears in the preview window as expected, both in the default window and when I choose to preview in Firefox and IE. However, when I generate the WebHelp and hover my mouse over the images, nothing shows up at all, and the alt text is replaced by the file name:
<p class="widegraphic"></p>
<div align="left"><img alt="using_bpl_form00003.jpg" style="margin-bottom : 6pt; " id="image2" src="using_bpl_form00003.jpg" />
</div>
If, however, I manually copy and paste the alt text into the screen tip field of the image in the RH topic, the alt text does appear in the WebHelp output:
<p class="widegraphic"><img alt="Coach completes form and can either submit now or save it as a draft, edit it, and submit it later. After submit, employee receives task or alert notification, and coach receives task notification. Coach can still edit form at this point. Employee acknolwedges form and completes tasks, and employee task changes to complete. Coach completes task, and task status changes to complete. Lastly, coach receives alert or message notification. "
id="image2" src="using_bpl_form00003.jpg"
title="Coach completes form and can either submit now or save it as a draft, edit it, and submit it later. After submit, employee receives task or alert notification, and coach receives task notification. Coach can still edit form at this point. Employee acknolwedges form and completes tasks, and employee task changes to complete. Coach completes task, and task status changes to complete. Lastly, coach receives alert or message notification."
style="margin-bottom: 6pt;" border="0" /> </p>
This seems like a pretty major bug to me. I know there have been scripts developed to delete the alt text so that graphic filename won't show up as the alt text, but is there anything that will take the existing alt text and populate the screen tip/title property with it, which seems to be the key to getting this to work in the output? There's no way I can manually copy and paste all the alt text into the images in RH, especially because I'll just end up having to redo it every time I update the linked FM files.
Thanks,
Jackie

Hi Jackie,
Offhand, your ALT string seems long. A quick search yielded info at http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/images/images_famsupp_85.html
If a lengthy description is needed to describe the image, use the LONGDESC attribute to point to the URL of another page which has the lengthy description. Because LONGDESC is not yet sufficiently supported, also follow the image with a "D-link". A D-link is a standard anchor link with contents consisting of the capital letter "D", like this:
Do you experience the same behavior with short alt strings as well?
-Matt
@mattrsullivan

Unwanted Snippets appear in Webhelp output

When producing Webhelp output, I've been having an out-of-date snippet appear in my document. I use a common snippet in several projects, and in some of the projects, the snippet appears twice in the output when it's not supposed to. I've modified said snippet, but when I produce the output, the old version of the snippet appears. Not only that, but I haven't even inserted the snippet into the topic and it still appears in the output. When I re-import the new version of the snippet and insert it, the output contains both the old version and the new version. I'm running RH9.01 on Windows 7 64-bit.

Have you tried deleting all files from your output directory or generating to a new directory?
The RoboColum(n)
@robocolumn
Colum McAndrew

Assistance with Search Feature used in WebHelp output

Hi Friends,
I have a specific requirement. I am trying to copy and paste a few HTML files in the WebHelp output folder from an external source and display these topic in the final WebHelp output. I was successful in updating the TOC ; merged index entries and glosarry terms and definitions. The external topics appear in the WebHelp output. However, I am not able to understand how my topics can be included in the Search feature. As of now the Search option only searches for key words within the default project topics. How can I extend this search to HTML pages that I have manually copied within the WebHelp output folder?

Welcome to our community
I'm more than a bit confused here. Why are you manually copying the pages? It seems that you don't mind the pages living amongst the other WebHelp pages. So why not simply copy them into the project? That way they would be included in the search.
If for some reason that's undesirable, you might look into configuring ZoomSearch. Look at the link below for that.
Click here to view
Cheers... Rick
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TOC and Index entries sometimes blank in WebHelp output

I'm running RoboHelp 10, generating Help files using the WebHelp target.
Sometimes, in the WebHelp output, clicking a Table of Contents or Index entry restults with a bank topic. This issue is resolved my either maximizing/minimizing the screen or by refreshing the browser.
The issue does not happen consistently in the output. As well, it seems to only happen in Internet Explorer 10.
Is there a work-around for this issue?

Just installing the patches is not enough. Adobe release some smaller
fixes for WebHelp on IE10/11 and Chrome. (4 in total) For an overview of
all RH fixes, see
http://www.wvanweelden.eu/articles/robohelp-patches-and-updates
Kind regards,
Willam

Context-sensitive help - where is the CS topic folder in the output files?

I have created a FlashHelpPro help file in RoboHelp 7 HTML. In the project setup pane, I have Map ID'd my context-sensitive topics and linked them to their respective pages. I generated the project, but there is no folder containing the context-sensitive topics in the output files. As a result, the developer suggested that I need to create a separate folder in the Project Manager that contains all the context-sentitive topics. Is this actually the next step, or can the developer find what he needs elsewhere in the files?
I haven't seen anything about creating a separate folder in the Project Manager, which seems redundant as there is the 'Context-sensitive Help' folder already present in the Project Set-up. Do I need to create a separate folder, as suggested by the developer? If not, where can he find the context-sensitive files in the output? Thank you.

Hi,
What do you mean that the context sensitive topics are not in the output? RoboHelp generates your output and (in WebHelp, so the same should count for FlashHelp) puts the context sensitivity in cshdat_webhelp.htm. Your developer doesn't need to worry about this, he just has to get his call right.
For information on calling the help, see http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/calling_webhelp/calling_webhelp.htm. It's for WebHelp but it should be the same for FlashHelp.
If your developer only wants to know which mapid's he has to call, you best give them your map files (the .h files).
Greet,
Willam
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RoboHelp V8 Are working files the output files?

I have RH V4 and there are 2 version of the file the html pages. The one I edit and then the files created for the output. I have to save both versions to multiple places and I was wondering if they are now just one file/version.
Also, I am trying to convince my company on the benefits of spending $500 to upgrade, any compelling reasons?
I like that I it can have multiple projects. But that doesn't merit $500 in their book.

Welcome to our community
I'm assuming you mean to say that you have RoboHelp X4. Version 4 is really REALLY old!
Think of your RoboHelp files as you might think of ingredients in the kitchen. You have eggs, flour, milk and whatnot. These are the source ingredients. They are very much like your RoboHelp source files. You mix these ingredients and bake them to create OUTPUT, such as Chocolate Chip cookies, Bran Muffins or whatever. The cookies and muffins are very much like your RoboHelp OUTPUT files.
All versions of RoboHelp I've ever seen are able to have multiple projects. Whether you think it's worth the upgrade price is for only you to decide. If you are happy with the way RoboHelp works and it suits you. Then hold off. But there are many factors to consider.
Does the new version offer something you might find useful and save lots of time? If so, upgrading is a no brainer.
Are you finding that the output you create has suddenly began to have issues? Might be time to upgrade. For example, if you are creating WebHelp output and suddenly you see lots of folks that are all using the new Google Chrome browser, the older version of WebHelp doesn't know about Chrome. So the WebHelp may have issues. In that case you might strongly consider upgrading so your output handles newer browsers.
Cheers... Rick
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Robohelp 8 Webhelp Output cannot be viewed in IE 10

Hi,
I have used Robohelp 8 to create help file. The webhelp output can be perfectly seen in IE 7 OR 8. However, in IE 10, when the start page in the webhelp folder is cliked, the TOC is opening but the topics are not getting displayed in the right pane. When we click a topic from the TOC pane, no topic gets displayed. Please suggest a solution ASAP, as we have sent the help to a client. They are are facing an issue with the help. We have to fast fix this problem to avoid an escalation. Please respond with a fix to this problem. Please note we have used Robohelp 8 and viewing the webhelp output in IE 10.

I have come acoss issues being reported in adobe forums that webhelp output cannot be viewed in IE 10. Fixes are provided for Robohelp 10 @http://forums.adobe.com/community/robohelp/robohelp_webhelp?view=discussions where we are given a link with the fixes @.http://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/kb/help-visible-using-win-8-ie.html but no fixes are available for robohelp 8. Please provide a similar fix for robohelp 8
Request the adobe development team to get back ASAP as we do not have the timeframe to upgrade to robohelp 10.

WebHelp Output Files

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