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Joe@Majiq
Inspiring
March 3, 2022
Question

Links stopped pointing to correct bookmarks

  • March 3, 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 609 views

I have a project that I upgraded from Classic Robohelp a while back, and now we're having problems with links that point to bookmarks on the same page.

 

Could it have anything to do with source controlling the project files? We recently started using the Robohelp command line as described on this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/using/generate-output.html 

 

Or could it be because we have many pages with bookmarks that use the same hashtag? For example, "Site" is a common field on many of our screens. Each screen has its own help topic with a definition for "Site". We list the fields at the top of each help topic page, and users can click on them to jump to the definition further down the page. The bookmark on each help topic would be "#Site". Do we need unique bookmarks for each instant of Site?

 

Thanks!

 

The link shown at the bottom of this window is NOT correct. It's trying to use the path on my hard drive.

 

The link shown at the bottom here is correct.

 

 

 

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    7 replies

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 8, 2022

    That very much points to the issue being something to do with the command line process as @Amebr has suggested.

     

    See if this helps. RH2020 Command Line Generation (grainge.org)

    ________________________________________________________

    My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

     

     

     

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    A
    Community Expert
    AmebrCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 7, 2022

    After checking the build machine meets OS and licensing requirements, as Peter suggested, it might also be worth doing your usual command line build process to confirm everything still works.  If it doesn't work, it might suggest a bug in the command line build process. (I'd suggest deleting the contents of the publish directory first, in case the bug is the command line not copying some things across. 🙂  )  In that case I'd recommend you contact support using the email address here: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp

    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 8, 2022

    The build machine is my local Windows 10 PC, not a server.

     

    We've run the command line utility again, and it still has bad links. I guess we'll have to contact support.

     

    Thanks!

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 7, 2022

    What is the OS on the build machine? I'm guessing it's not compatible with RoboHelp.

    ________________________________________________________
    My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

    Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 8, 2022

    The build machine is my local Windows 10 machine.

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 7, 2022

    I can only see the issue when we check in the project and compile the help for our development environment. It's really frustrating that I can't test the issue in Robohelp.

     

    Egh? If the problem is in a single topic you can go to Preview and see how it works. Also you are saying check in the project and compile it. You would check it out so that the whole project is on your local drive and then generate it.

     

    I suggest forgetting command line for now and compiling on your machine.

    ________________________________________________________
    My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

     

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    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 7, 2022

    No, the problem is in almost every topic I look at.

    When I open a project, I use Collaborate > Open Connection, and connect to the project in VSTS.

    When I'm done making changes, I go to Collaborate > Check In.

    We then use the Robohelp command line tool to generate the output and place it where it needs to go.

     

    When in Robohelp, I cannot see the problem if I Generate Preset and then View Output. Everything works fine because the broken links are pointing to project files on my hard drive. But if I view the output using the server our application runs on, then the links don't work.

     

    Does that make sense?

    A
    Community Expert
    AmebrCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 6, 2022

    I'm surprised by the file name in the link. Usually when you create a link to a bookmark in the same topic, only the bookmark is part of the link code like so:

    <a href="MyBookmark">Link to my bookmark</a>

     

    However, I'm not familiar with the import process, and maybe it's including the topic name during import? Theoretically it shouldn't cause a problem, but perhaps try creating an additional link within RH to one of the broken bookmarks, to see if the file name is included, and if the generated output then works without the file name?

    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 7, 2022

    Yeah, I thought that was weird as well. But I've only touched a small fraction of the anchors and bookmarks, and the problem is visible all over the place.

    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 5, 2022

    It looks like that is content imported from Word and not cleaned up. However, I don't think that is the issue and I'm not sure what it is.

     

    What I did was paste into a topic what you have posted. Straightaway it shows two errors so if you are seeing any of those, that needs fixing. In this case I simply deleted lines 15 and 19.

    With that done the author view showed this.

    Next I created two links to those bookmarks and both worked.

     

    If you switch to Source View, are you seeing any red circles indicating errors?

     

    To clean up the code a bit I selected the Alt Bale ID paragraph excluding the bookmark from the selection.

    I then clicked the Clear Formating icon. That stripped some of the code so that instead of looking like this...

     

    ... it looks like this.

     

    The style and language code could probably also be cleaned up but that's not the worry right now.

     

    Getting back to the root problem the links to both bookmarks work as they were so I am a bit baffled. I think the first thing is for you to tells us whether or not you are seeing any red circles in the code.

     

    To troubleshoot I suggest you create a duplicate of the topic so that if any changes make the problem worse, you have a backup.

    ________________________________________________________
    My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

     

     

     

     

    Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.
    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 7, 2022

     

    If you switch to Source View, are you seeing any red circles indicating errors?

     

    Nope, there aren't any errors.

    I don't know if this is a problem introduced because of the move from Classic to modern Robohelp since I can only see the issue when we check in the project and compile the help for our development environment. It's really frustrating that I can't test the issue in Robohelp.

    A
    Community Expert
    AmebrCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 4, 2022

    What do a working link and a broken link look like in the RH source, using the code view? Just to rule out somehow having a hard coded path in the broken examples.

    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 4, 2022

    Here's a broken link...

    <p class="HelpOnly" style="mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: #ff00ff;"><a href="231.html#wp1105627" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Air Dry%</a></span></p>

     

    This one works....

    <p class="HelpOnly" style="mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="231.html#Alt_Bale_ID:_"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: #0000ff;">A</span>lt Bale ID</a></p>

     

    This one is broken...

    <p class="HelpOnly" style="mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; color: #ff00ff;"><a href="231.html#wp1105619" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Bale Count</a></span></p>

     

    This one works...

    <p class="HelpOnly" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; color: #000080;"><a href="231.html#Bale:">Bale</a></p>

     

    This one is broken...

    <p class="HelpOnly" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; font-weight: normal;"><a href="231.html#Alt_Bale_IDTo" style="font-weight: normal;"><b style="font-weight: normal;">A</b>lt Bale/To</a></p>
    J
    Joe@MajiqAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 4, 2022

    Here's the bookmark end of things. I included just the anchor and the full paragraph in case something is going on outside the anchor.

     

    Broken bookmark (anchor only and full paragraph)...

    <a name="wp1105627" id="wp1105627"></a>

     

    <p class="Field_Def"><a name="wp1105627" id="wp1105627"></a><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 7.0pt; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; color: #000000; mso-ansi-language: EN;" xml:lang="EN">Air Dry %:</span></b> <span lang="EN" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 7.0pt; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; color: #000000; mso-ansi-language: EN;" xml:lang="EN">The average airdry percentage of the bale being added.</span></p>

     

    Working bookmark (anchor only and full paragraph)...

     

    <a name="Alt_Bale_ID:_" id="Alt_Bale_ID:_"></a>

     

     

    <p class="Field_Def" style="mso-fareast-font-family: &#39;Times New Roman&#39;;"><span lang="EN" xml:lang="EN"><a name="Alt_Bale_ID:_" id="Alt_Bale_ID:_"></a></span><span lang="EN" style="font-weight: bold;" xml:lang="EN">Alt Bale ID</span><span lang="EN" xml:lang="EN">: Supports the ability to associate an alternative bale ID, for example an ID printed on the bale.  Enable per site using the</span> <span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">EnableAltBaleIDAddBales</span> setting on the <a href="900.html">Setting Details List (900)</a>.</p>

     

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