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Jared Hess
Jared Hess
Legend
July 25, 2016
Answered

Dropdown / twisties in footer section of master page?

  • July 25, 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 1255 views

RH 2015 (12.0.3.428)

Windows 7 64-bit

CHM Output

How does one make dropdown text or twisties work in the footer section of a master page?

We're trying to add drop down text / twisties into each topic's footer so our customers can access company, product, support info from any topic. The most logical way to do this is to modify the master page and add the content into the footer.

We have these main headings:

       Contact the Doc Team

PDF Documentation

Support Links

Company Information

Product Information

Here's more or less what I want it to look like once the user expands it:

        Contact the Doc Team

     Send Feedback

PDF Documentation

     Readme

     Manuals

Support Links

     Tech support

     Forum

     Regional Office

 

Company Information

     Address

     Website

       Product Information

             Product name

             Version

             website

But when I open the master page in the main edit view, the ability to add drop down functionality is grayed out inside RH.

I tried creating the footer drop down content in a separate test topic and then copying and pasting it into the master page directly. RH removes the content the minute I try to save it, leaving only the linked headings. Example text that gets removed:

<?rh-droptext_start class="droptext" id="POPUP542020552" style="display: none;" ?>

        <p class="footerpar">Readme.pdf | <a href="#" class="footerlink">LINK

         HERE</a></p>

        <p class="footerpar">Printable Manuals | <a href="#" class="footerlink">LINK

         HERE</a></p><?rh-droptext_end ?>

Are there workarounds to accomplish twisties on a footer section of a master page without using an external .js file?

I may have to attempt a .jquery route if I can't get RH to behave, but would love to just use the master page itself without other files.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jared Hess

I eventually got drop downs working inside an .hts that is then inside of the footer section of the .htt.

I found out that the problems in the CSS I posted in the above images were caused mainly from my own CSS issues.

However, when I tried to add twistie images, bad news...

Twisties are all or nothing in RoboHelp. You apply them to all drop downs or to none.

That won't work for us, since our footer background is a darker background.

So I created my own custom drop downs with jQuery and CSS.

And they worked!

Well, mostly. . .

Long story short: it's been a painful week and half, mostly spent trying to get this footer .hts to look and behave the way I want it too in my chm. I had to do a LOT of trial and error and incremental testing to figure out something that works.

Some things I learned:

  • Square pegs only fit in round holes with much hammering and much mess.
  • Chms are old. They aren't the easiest things to work with when it comes to using styles. Many things aren't supported that you can do in a normal browser.
  • Under the hood chms use IE 7, so you have to use CSS that fits that version.
  • You can work around some of the limitations RH imposes using alternate tools and approaches.
  • Use a repository. If you make a mistake or start going down a path that you want to abort or put on the shelf for later, you can easily do that. (I'm really glad I did this. I was able to easily jump back and forth between my revisions and see what code worked and what didn't.)
  • In a repository, use a test project that mimics your production project, including folder structure, but on a much smaller scale so you can do quicker chm builds. (I had my footer working on Monday but when I moved it into our real project, the footer didn't work right on chms in subfolders. So I had to build a workaround for that. I would have seen it earlier had I better mimicked my directory structure.)
  • Don't get so sucked into one approach that you neglect other tools or methods that may be simpler. (I spent a good amount of time trying to get RH drop downs working in a RH footer, when jQuery, once I figured out how to do it, provided a much simpler approach.)

My footer's end result (with custom expanding twisties and drop downs):

2 replies

Jared Hess
Jared HessAuthor
Legend
July 29, 2016

I'm looking into a work around.

Peter's idea of using a snippet before the closing body tag of each htm, made me wonder if I can use a snippet with drop down links inside the footer of the .htt.

This actually works, but must use a text editor like Notepad++ to edit the htt. If you try to add it within RH, RH immediately removes it.

Another issue is that this doesn't pickup my styles consistently from my style sheet when I built the chm.

For example:

CHM Footer Text Directly in the .htt:

CHM Footer Text from a Snippet in the .htt:

(Previewed in Ctrl + W, the snippet looks fine)

CHM Footer Text in drop downs in a snippet in the .htt:

I believe the problems here have to do with a combination of CSS specificity and relative sizes going wonky when the content comes together from these different pieces.

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
July 29, 2016

Actually Master Pages have TWO points.

1. To serve as a Template used when creating topics. (In fact, before they were called Master Pages, they were called "Topic Templates")

2. To connect with topics to cause consistent information such as a Copyright notice among many pages.

Cheers... Rick

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 28, 2016

I'm thinking that if it is disabled, it is because for some reason it will not work.

How about adding it as a Snippet to each topic? You would probably add it to one topic to get the code and then use a mass Find and Replace to add the Snippet to all topics just before the closing tag.

Would that work?

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

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Jared Hess
Jared HessAuthor
Legend
July 28, 2016

Hi Peter.

I suspect that would "work", but it's not our desired approach. The whole idea behind headers and footers on a template (or master page) is to make the change in one location and have it pick up that change on all htms without it triggering a change on that htm in our source control software. We have thousands of topics in this help project, and it slows things down when all the developers in our company have to pull down thousands of htms when they synchronize their repositories.

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
July 28, 2016

WRT, "All Developers" - Are these application developers or help developers?

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