WebHelp Search Highlighting Revisited (RH7)

I like RH7's built-in search highlighting feature,
particularly after applying Adobe's update to 7.02.001 (see P.
Grainge's item 32 under Using RoboHelp 7, the fix/replacement for
whtopic.js). However, I swear that my current project is behaving
differently from my initial trial using RH7 demo (with the fix,
using IE v6). Perhaps I hadn't noticed it before,
but the entire phrase or sentence or paragraph (this varies)
containing each found and highlighted
word
is displayed bolded!
Was this intended? Has anyone else noticed this? Did I
unknowingly toggle some setting or corrupt a style? It's quite
distracting and my customer doesn't like it. I did verify that the
whtopic.js file in the generated WebHelp files collection does
contain the fix.
I thought it might be related to whether the found word (or
any other in the surrounding original text) was bolded, but this
happens in paragraphs even where I have not used any bolding. I'm
puzzled -- or is this a "feature"?
Thanks as always to this helpful and responsive community!
Steve Peterson

Aha! Persistence pays off. I found and removed "font-weight:
bold;"
and "font-style: normal" from the definition of style "span"
in my master style sheet, leaving "span"'s definition empty. RH7's
Format / Styles editor window now shows "span + " as the definition
of "span" under Character.
The highlighting feature now works as it should, simply
highlighting the found item(s) as formatted. Starting to get the
hang of Styles, I guess...
Cheers!
Steve

Similar Messages

RH9 Search highlighting color won't stick

When you use the Search feature and select "Highlight search results" the default color is gray. The word or phrase you're searching for displays in gray in all the topics in your search results.
From a usability standpoint, gray is a really bad color for highlighting. People are used to yellow, so if they saw that they would know what it means. Other colors would also send the correct message. But I kept getting emails from people asking me what's wrong with the online help because their screen was peppered with gray splotches.
So I went in and changed the highlighting color in the Webhelp > Search > Search Options dialog. All was well, until the next time I compiled the project. The color choice reverted to gray. Apparently you must go in and make your color choice EVERY TIME you update a project. If Adobe had chosen any color but gray as the default, I'd just leave it.
This is a problem because my project consists of one parent and about 20 child projects. I went in and changed the search highlighting color in all 21 projects, only to learn that the ones I'd since updated were displaying their highlights in gray. So users were getting blue highlights in some search results topics, and gray in others. It shouldn't do this.
If there's a fix, please advise.
Thank you!

Hi there
Hopefully Peter won't mind my offering another possible suggestion.
Try creating a new Single Source Layout. Just right-click the Single Source Layouts pod and create a new layout. My thought here is that perhaps the file holding the recipe for that layout may have somehow become a bit corrupt and creating a new SSL recipe may make things finally "stick".
Cheers... Rick
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RoboHelp 9 - What does WebHelp Search actually Search

I am using RoboHelp 9 and can't seem to find out what WebHelp Search actually searches. Will it search Word documents, PowerPoint or PDF documents that are included in the Project files?
Or does it only search for the keywords that I enter for that topic page that the file is linked to?
Deb

Hi Deb
A fair question. But we first need to clarify exactly what you mean by Search. I say this because sometimes folks talk about the Index as if it were Search. And indeed, they are two separate things.
With the Index, the help author specifies specific keywords by either typing them in manually or by asking RoboHelp to assist (by using the Smart Index Wizard) and the experience for the end user is this. They click the Index tab, then begin typing what they are looking for. As they type, a list of keywords is attempted to dynamically match what is being typed. Often, before they completely type the keyword it appears in the list and off they go.
On the other hand, with Search, the user types the search term in full, then clicks a Go button. At that point the search is performed and candidate files are returned. And yes, typically, Microsoft Word documents, Adobe PDF documents, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and I believe even Microsoft PowerPoint documents will also be searched.
Hope this helps... Rick

Weird characters in search highlight

I tried using Calvin Ly's search highlight technique. It
works fine for a while and then mu users get weird little square
characters displaying in bulleted lists in their browsers. Has
anyone else experienced this problem? Know of a fix? If I do not
use the search highlight (just plain search) I don't have this
problem.
RH HTML X5
Thanks in advance.

As a matter of fact, I ran into this sitation yesterday (a
tiny square box above all list items).
I did the only thing that occurred to me: I deleted six image
map hyperlinks on a workflow graphic, and then re-created them.
All fixed! I have no idea if this'll help you or not.
Good luck,
Leon

Error 'this.node.parentNode is null or not an object' with search highlight in certain topics

goto
http://www.afas.nl/profithelp/2_8_2/SE/index.htm
Click 'zoeken' (search)
Be sure that 'Zoekresultaten markeren' (search highlight) is
checked
Type 'activa'
Click the topic 'activa'
An error is displayed in the bottom left corner:
'this.node.parentNode is null or not an object'
If search highlight is not used, the error is not displayed.
Any ideas?

I think I have it, but it's almost unbelieveable.
In the activa topic, the word is highlighted up to a point.
Coming to the next instance of activa, you have this code:
<li class=p-BulletedList>V: vaste activa waarop wordt
afgeschreven (Dit is de standaard waarde) . . . 
Note the superfluous and tags,
especially with the calling for normal font-weight.
Suppose this is a valid string. Because the opening tags are
,
the closing sequence should be
...
I'm not sure exactly why the error does what it does.
Perhaps this is a simple html error that happens to come in
an awkward place, or
Because the browser expects first, it treats
 as text, so the never gets closed, which
confuses the search highlight script.
I've run into something like this before. Repeated
application, changes and deletion of font attributes in
approximately the same place sometimes results in confused tags.
Similarly, when you apply a build tag to styled text, and perhaps
change the font attribute, opening and closing tags get confused.
It may depend on the precise locations where you started and ended
your highlights during editing.
You'd expect this to be a harmless html error, but in this
case, it breaks the highlight code, I believe.
You're in a better position to test this than I am, so I
await your results.
Harvey

Search Highlight Error

I am using Calvin Ly's method for highighting search using
RoboHelpHTML X5. Everything works well until I get to the topic.
Yes, the search words highlight but Help freezes as I get a
Microsoft Internet Explorer error message. The IE error message is:
Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site
http:/xprodapp1:9999/ptsmrhelp/PTSMR_ICMS.html
Note: PTSMR_ICMS.html is the home page.
Thank You!

1)Thanks for your reply Peter. I answered your questions in
<< parens>> within your answer below.
2)If I cannot resolve the problem, would removing the js file
allow Help to work (I know I won't get the search highlight).
Nothing to do with the script. Open the js file in a text
editor to see what it contains.<<Nothing that I see but I'll
look it over some more in case I missed something>> I've not
seen any problems like this reported regarding the use of this
script. Have you followed the instructions from my
site?<<Yes>
I notice you have an html extension. RH uses htm and I don't
know if Calvin's script will work with html. Try it in a test
project using just htm files. <<It did not seem to make a
difference>>

RoboHelp 10 WebHelp search feature not working?

Hi all,
I am using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite 4 and cannot get RoboHelp 10 to generate a WebHelp product with search capabilities.
I have created a RoboHelp 10 WebHelp project and imported FrameMaker 11 files.
Everything seems okay, but when I search in Internet Explorer 10, nothing happens. I can even be on the same page as a term and enter the term in the box,
but then nothing happenns. I also tried: Opera, Firefox, Chrome and Safari browsers and still no results in the WebHelp search results.
Actually, I get one word by default and that word is: "null".
Any idea on what is causing this? I have a deliverable due soon, and I need to get this search capability working.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
I am using the latest patch too - RoboHelp 10.0.0.287
Regards,
Jim

Hi Jeff,
Thanks for the reply. I am not sure if it is Java, although I did download Java to make sure I had the latest update. I am running on a Windows 7 64 Bit Dell Laptop with Adobe TCS 4.
I just saw a different post - but related to this post on the topic and I think it has to do something with the XML files that are created during the normal generation process.
I have a feeling that there is something wrong with my XML files and the reason I say that is because I can generate one of the sample RoboHelp projects to WebHelp and then use IE 10 to search and the results
come up right away, but when I do a WebHelp generate on my project the search does not work.
Here is that related thread:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/798369
Search Error: Failed to initialize database
Mar 1, 2011 12:33 PM
That thread dealt with RoboHelp 8 and I am using RoboHelp 10, but I think the problem is probably the same.
My questions are as follows:
I have a customer deliverable on Monday with several hundred files and a search mechanism that does not work at all. Can I copy the search mechanism from the sample project and then put it into my project?
Are the XML files generic or specific to each project?
How many XML, Javascript and other RoboHelp type files are used to make the search functionality work? I was thinking of populating one of those sample files, that has already been started with my files to see if that would get things going in the right direction - with the idea of removing all the sample files from that project and replacing them with my files, but, I have over 400 files, including references to foldout drawings and vendor manuals (baggage files) and it would probably take too much time to make that happen.
With that said, if you or anyone else has ideas on how I could get this search engine working, I would really, really appreciate it.
My current file structure is like this:
Main Project Folder
    !ScreenLayout
    My Project File1
    My Project File2
    My Project File3
    resource
    whdata
    whgdata
    whxdata
    Frnt_Cov.htm
    Frnt_Cov_csh.htm
    Frnt_Cov_rhc.htm
    All RoboHelp graphics, javascripts and .htm files
There does NOT seem to these folders that are in the sample:
!Language!
!SkinSubFolder!
!SSL!
The !ScreenLayout! folder is the only one present. Does this have anything to do with only having MultiScreen HTML5 and WebHelp (Primary Layout) for my project settings?
Again the most notable difference I see, is between the folders NOT included in my project (!Language!, !SkinSubFolder! and !SSL!). I am not sure why these folders are not included in WebHelp.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, as well as for any suggestions that can be offered. I really need to get the search feature working by tomorrow.
Regards,
Jim

Hide search highlight once in a topic?

Hi all,
RH version: 11.0.0.179
SSL: Multiscreen HTML5 - Desktop screen profile only
IE version: 9
Is there a built-in widget/thing to add a button to a topic to hide the search highlighting? To be clear, I want the search highlight on, but I want users to be able to turn it off once they have found the topic they need. I've done a little searching in the help and online, so I suspect there isn't, but want to make sure.
If there isn't a built-in function, does anyone know if there is a way to add my own button/javascript? I can read other's code and do a little bit of scripting, but only really basic stuff.
Thanks for your help

The widget does the highlighting by reading the url. You will find ?rhsearch=searchstring added to the URL. Once the highlighting is applied, you can remove it with lots of JavaScript. An easier solution may be to create a button to reload the page without the highlight option in the url. A button could do:
document.location = location.protocol + '//' + location.host + location.pathname
Kind regards,
Willam

Webhelp Search Reporting

Has anyone been able to successfully report on webhelp searching? I'm using Google Analytics, but I cannot get the Site Search analysis to work, which I assume is because my webhelp does not use Google search. I'm interested in see what peopel are searching for and bounce rate. Thanks in advance!

Welcome to our community
When you examine the Single Source Layout recipe options, click the Navigation section on the left side of the dialog and examine the settings on the right side.
By chance do you have "Pure HTML" selected? If so, change to DHTML > Pure HTML and generate again.
Click the image below for larger and possibly clearer view.
Cheers... Rick
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Issue with unlinked books in WebHelp Pro project TOC - RH7 and RH8

I've been testing WebHelp Pro in both RH7 and RH8. Have the same problem in both with the topic that automatically displays when you click a book/sub-book that is not linked to a specific topic. For some reason, WebHelp Pro displays the last topic in the previous book/sub-book. After opening different books/sub-books within the TOC, I determined that there's a browse sequence being created based on the TOC hierarchy even though I do NOT have any browse sequences set up in this project at the topic level. However, WebHelp thinks that the last topic above the selected book is what should be displayed even though it might not relate to any of the topics associated with the selected book. This is a real usability issue. I was confused by what was displaying and I'm the one who develops the help topics and TOC.
By the way, this does NOT happen when I publish using FlashHelp Pro. In FlashHelp, the last topic that was accessed remains in the topic frame if there is no topic linked to the selected book. This is much more acceptable to the user because the topic is not switching.
I'm assuming that this is a BUG and should be reported!
NOTE: We're still working in RH7 but plan to publish to RH Server 8 using WebHelp Pro.
Because I don't expect this to be fixed soon, we have developed a workaround. We are adding a generic but applicable topic for each book/sub-book. This will be our new development standard but it requires going back into 4 different projects to fix the problem. Not the most efficient use of our time as we're swamped with new topic development.

Hi.
Yes this is a bug and I'd urge you to report it. You can use this link. The more people that do the greater chance it will be fixed. I have covered the entire problem and the workarounds here.
Read the RoboColum(n) for a tips, tricks and musings on the Technical Communication Suite products.

Search highlights from external highlight server

In Acrobat Reader 9, under Edit > Preferences > Search, the "Enable search highlights from external highlight server" option is by default set to false. For those of us who use third party search engines to search PDF files on the web, this is a disaster. The only way to enable hit highlighting in this situation is to have users change their settings manually, which is a lot to ask of people who are not tech savvy.
Does anyone know of a solution to this problem? Would Adobe change the default settings to true in future versions? Is there some kind of workaround?
Thanks,
Simon

Why did Adobe change the defaut? I am installing dtSearch and it works great in Adobe 8 and below. But Adobe changed version 9 changed and so now the hits do not show and the "Jump to next Hits" and "Jump to previous Hits" does not show on the Adobe toolbar.
My problem is that this makes dtSearch look bad - like their search page is no good.
If I create web pages using dtSearch, the users will not know enough to set the Enable search highlights from external highlight server.
Even if I put a big note on the web page, I know that people will not read it and they will think that the web page is buggy.
I sure wish Adobe would put this back and make Enable search highlights from external highlight server the default.

Robohelp 9: WebHelp search showing too many highlighted results

I set up the WebHelp Settings (Search) to Enable Highlighting in Search Results, Show Context in Search Results, and Hide Rank Column in Search Results. When I search for keywords, such as "e-mailing requestors", the results highlight every letter in the search phrase, including the "e" in "the. I did not enable the Substring Search. Please see the attached screenshot. Does anyone know what's wrong?
I have the latest update of RoboHelp 9 (9.0.0.228). This is happening in IE9 (9.0.8112.16421) and Firefox 3.6.20. (I can't even test the WebHelp locally in Google Chrome until I upload it to the Web server, since all of the panes are blank (version 13.0.782.112 m).

Peter,
You and Rick are both correct.
Here's the response from Nidhi at Adobe Support after I reported this as a bug:
"For searching words like 'e-mail' ,you need to specify it in double quotes ,and then only just the word 'e-mail' will be highlighted .
As in our search we have a set of break characters:- @ $ ^ ( ) ~ ? / { } [ ] + = ! * - %.
Whenever we encounter such break characters in the search query ,text is broken into keywords at these characters and indexed for searching ,and that is why in case of the word e-mail, the word 'e' and the word 'mail' are indexed separately .And when you search for the word e-mail without quotes ,it would search for all instances where it finds the word 'e' or the word 'mail' and highlight them .
Hence if you want the search to return and highlight only the word 'e-mail', you need to specify the word 'e-mail' in quotes like "e-mail" so that it honors it as a phrase and phrase search is done on it and the exact match is returned and highlighted."
Thanks very much for your help.

RHTML 8 WebHelp Search in Chrome not working

We are running RoboHTML 8, with output to WebHelp. The project does include PDF files. I mention
this because of other Discussions I've read looking for a solution.
The output is delivered to customers in a WAR and it serves just fine from the server in IE, FireFox,
and, even though technically not supported, in Chrome. However, in Chrome, while the TOC and Index
are ok, Search does not work from the server. (I did notice repainting issues when selecting multiple
entries in succession in the Index - as noted in another Discussion.)
What I mean by "does not work" is that when I type in a word ("expression", for example) and click Search, nothing happens.
The Search field is highlighted in a thin red line, so perhaps it is related to a security issue?
I have used Peter Grainge's Snippet to run the help output locally in Chrome and it runs fine. However,
Search does not work in Chrome when running the help locally.
I tried deleting the CPD and then opening the project and regenerating, but that did not
make any difference.
I saw another Post that said to try RH 10, but our manager said that upgrading is
not a first choice if another way to fix can be found.
Can anyone help please?

Always difficult to answer when the question is phrased as you have put it. Rh9 and 10 are supported for Chrome and searching does work. It is always possible that something in your project or environment may cause a problem so no one will say for sure it will work. It should but the only sure way is to download the trial and check it out.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

WebHelp Search Field

I know this is a long-shot question but since I have no idea how to go about fixing the issue involved, I figured I had to start somewhere. It is for a help file published in WebHelp, and this is the bug I was given:
When you focus on the search box in help, it highlights the default text, "- Search -", and therefore when you start typing it removes it. It might be better to have it clear the text when focus is put on the text box.
-In Chrome it highlights the text: "- Search -" and then un-highlights that text, which isn't really how it should act.
I asked one of our developers about it and he said it had to be a RoboHelp problem, although I don't know where in RH I could fix any part of the GUI for the WebHelp window. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Hello again
You are seeing the ActiveX warning (otherwise known as the Yellow Information Bar) because you are viewing the content in Microsoft Internet Explorer and you the content is being viewed from your local C drive.
Although WebHelp works when viewed from your local C drive, it's really intended to be viewed from a web server. Once you view it from a web server there is no issue with ActiveX as you are in a different security zone.
If you don't wish to deal with the Yellow Information Bar, you should consider enabling the Mark of the Web feature in your Single Source Layout recipe.
Cheers... Rick
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Robohelp AIR search highlights wrong words

Hi,
I tried generating other layouts (Webhelp Pro, Microsoft Help), but I only saw this behavior with AIRHelp. When searching for a word (for example "Adobe") it highlights the wrong sections in the text. See screenshot:

Ok. So I ran it from my home PC, which has Win XP and had never had any version of Robohelp installed. The AIR would not run at first because
I supposedly did not have the right JRE version to create the certificate. But then I installed the new JRE version and then generated the AIR help file and observed the same problem with the wrong highlighted words after a search.
Now, I am wondering, how did you, Peter, get it to work correctly? Did you also install Robohelp 9 through download from the Adobe web site? Or do you have a different version and how can I get that version? I have a suspicion that the AIR help is based on the Javahelp Java code, because I observed the same problem with JavaHelp, can you perhaps ask about that?
Thanks,
pb3579

WebHelp Search Highlighting Revisited (RH7)

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