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Inspiring
January 6, 2009
Answered

Merged WebHelp Projects & Context Sensitivity

  • January 6, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 610 views
Hi. I'm excerpting from a topic I posted to in the wrong location. Below is the exchange I had with Peter Grainge. In the next message I will post my additional question(s):

Peter Grainge wrote:
For WebHelp we use the startpage'htm#path/targettopic.htm method and it works well. See my site for more information. Visit www.grainge.org for a range of RoboHelp and authoring related topics


hermi14 wrote:
Thanks. Now that I understand the difference between Webhelp and HTML Help, I see that this topic only covers context sensitivity with merged *HTML Help* projects (which use the CHM file). What happened was that I searched for this topic across several forums and failed to notice that the topic covers "RoboHelp for HTML Help" (the output type) not "RoboHelp for HTML" (the user interface type)!

I see now that my project must use the Webhelp format and I am happy to learn that context sensitivity for Webhelp merged projects has been successfully worked out and documented already as compatible with RH7!!!

Due to a combination of VPN access issues, the fact that I have only one other writer working on my project, and my deep distrust of applications like RoboSource Control (which has been confirmed by just a little bit of testing), I've decided to use merged projects instead of source control as a collaboration tool.

I'm sure you will hear more from me. You rock (rap, or otherwise harmonize)!!!

Peter Grainge wrote:
Check what you plan to do with your developers. This affects their calls to the help.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer hermi14
OK, I'm answering my own question. (Hopefully this will redeem me for some of the stupid newbie questions I've asked so far and which have been very patiently answered by the gurus--mostly Peter G.)

I just tested context sensitivity on a merged webhelp project created in RH7 and using IE 7 and it works!!!! Yahoo!!!

**I used the Javascript call from a web page to test.
**I've only tested the RHShowHelp() function using the HH_HELP_CONTEXT parameter
**I've brought up the default topic (which is the first topic in the first merged project--the one that is redirected to from the parent project).
**I've brought up a specific topic with no nav pane based on map ID.

As mentioned, I followed Greg Minter's instructions from 2006 posted on PG's site. However, here are some clarifications/changes to those steps (please forgive me if anybody already knew this stuff):

***You don't have to manually copy and paste the Map IDs from the Map ID (*.h) files of the child projects into the Map ID file of the parent project. Just generate the parent and child projects as usual and the references are automated.

***[Concommitantly] You don't have to manually place the Map ID (*.h) file in the output folder (mergedprojects\projectnnn), as he describes.

Woo Hoo.


1 reply

hermi14Author
Inspiring
January 6, 2009
I've read the instructions by Greg Minter on calling merged Webhelp topics using Map IDs. However, since that article has not been updated since 2006, I am still wondering whether anyone has successfully used this method with RH7 and IE7.
hermi14AuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
January 6, 2009
OK, I'm answering my own question. (Hopefully this will redeem me for some of the stupid newbie questions I've asked so far and which have been very patiently answered by the gurus--mostly Peter G.)

I just tested context sensitivity on a merged webhelp project created in RH7 and using IE 7 and it works!!!! Yahoo!!!

**I used the Javascript call from a web page to test.
**I've only tested the RHShowHelp() function using the HH_HELP_CONTEXT parameter
**I've brought up the default topic (which is the first topic in the first merged project--the one that is redirected to from the parent project).
**I've brought up a specific topic with no nav pane based on map ID.

As mentioned, I followed Greg Minter's instructions from 2006 posted on PG's site. However, here are some clarifications/changes to those steps (please forgive me if anybody already knew this stuff):

***You don't have to manually copy and paste the Map IDs from the Map ID (*.h) files of the child projects into the Map ID file of the parent project. Just generate the parent and child projects as usual and the references are automated.

***[Concommitantly] You don't have to manually place the Map ID (*.h) file in the output folder (mergedprojects\projectnnn), as he describes.

Woo Hoo.