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Jared Hess
Jared Hess
Legend
July 27, 2018
Answered

Purpose of Redirect in Merged Help?

  • July 27, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 3306 views

RH 2017 13.0.2.334

Greetings RoboHelpers! After 14 years of merged help .chm goodness in RoboHelp, we are finally making the switchover to using web-based help, specifically using the Responsive HTML5 layout. We're also trying to mimic the merged help we had in the chms.

This week I've been working at converting our help system outputs to that format, creating layouts etc,  and getting the merged help figured out. I have the merged help working, but have a few questions:

First, I saw on Peter's site, information about about a javascript redirect in his instructions:
Merged WebHelp and HTML5 Help

What is the purpose of that js redirect? I didn't really understand its purpose and so didn't implement it.

Second, our parent help project that the child helps are merged beneath does contain a few topics itself. What is the best way to link to those parent topics in RoboHelp from the child projects? How can I maintain those links when topic files get renamed?

Third, simiilar to second, what about sibling to sibling links? We have 500+ links between sibliing .chms that we will need to convert. Links that look something like this:

<a href="pcdmiscmm.chm::/pcdmis_cmm_introduction.htm">PC-DMIS

CMM</a>

I plan on using Np++ to do some pattern replacements across the board for each of the .chms we are linking to. Is there anything else I should know, or best practices I should follow?

Fourth, I nottiiced that if I make change in the parent help project and click publish, it tries to publish everything in the child helps, even though I've published them separately already. How do I tell RH not to do this and to ONLY publish that parrent project?

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll have more as I continue my foray. Many thanks in advance.

Jared

Message was edited by Peter Grainge. Title referred to WebHelp but thread is about Responsive Help. Purpose of redirect is the same in both.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Peter Grainge

Jared.

The reason for the redirect is to do with the structure that RoboHelp creates when you generate the parent. That is shown in Figure 3 in my topic.

When you create links between child projects, you can do so easily by following the method I describe. You will need to redo all your sibling links because they are written a different way in CHMs. Those links will work just fine provided you have also set up your projects using the structure I show in Figure 4.

Where the problem comes in is with parent / child links. They will break in the output so the simplest thing to do is create a new project and call that the parent. In it you put absolutely nothing except the redirect. You then move what you currently call your parent and make it another child. Then ALL your links are child to child and they will work happily.

I strongly suggest you download the demo I have set up to see how that works and to play with creating links before you do anything for real with your live projects. Unless of course you want to become a quivering wreck and get locked away.

In the demo it's all very simple and you can quickly see what is going on without the clutter of a big project. That addresses 1 and 2.

Re 3. As above, you have got to rework those links. Up to you how.

Re 4. That can be an odd one. Essentially you cannot stop it. It will certainly do it with a newly set up merge. Afterwards, it mostly doesn't but depending on the prevailing wind when you generate, it sometimes does.

There's one big difference between merged CHMs / merged WebHelp and merged responsive help.

With CHMs and WebHelp, what the user sees is the parent and whichever combination of the children are present. You can simply not deliver child 3 and things will work for say child 1,2 and 4.

With responsive help, you have to generate the combination you want. The developers cannot mix and match as they choose.

Edited to correct final sentence to read "cannot"

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

1 reply

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
July 28, 2018

Jared.

The reason for the redirect is to do with the structure that RoboHelp creates when you generate the parent. That is shown in Figure 3 in my topic.

When you create links between child projects, you can do so easily by following the method I describe. You will need to redo all your sibling links because they are written a different way in CHMs. Those links will work just fine provided you have also set up your projects using the structure I show in Figure 4.

Where the problem comes in is with parent / child links. They will break in the output so the simplest thing to do is create a new project and call that the parent. In it you put absolutely nothing except the redirect. You then move what you currently call your parent and make it another child. Then ALL your links are child to child and they will work happily.

I strongly suggest you download the demo I have set up to see how that works and to play with creating links before you do anything for real with your live projects. Unless of course you want to become a quivering wreck and get locked away.

In the demo it's all very simple and you can quickly see what is going on without the clutter of a big project. That addresses 1 and 2.

Re 3. As above, you have got to rework those links. Up to you how.

Re 4. That can be an odd one. Essentially you cannot stop it. It will certainly do it with a newly set up merge. Afterwards, it mostly doesn't but depending on the prevailing wind when you generate, it sometimes does.

There's one big difference between merged CHMs / merged WebHelp and merged responsive help.

With CHMs and WebHelp, what the user sees is the parent and whichever combination of the children are present. You can simply not deliver child 3 and things will work for say child 1,2 and 4.

With responsive help, you have to generate the combination you want. The developers cannot mix and match as they choose.

Edited to correct final sentence to read "cannot"

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

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Jared Hess
Jared HessAuthor
Legend
August 7, 2018

Thank you for your prompt and complete reply Peter. It looks like I'll have to turn the parent topics into a sibling project then. That shouldn't be terribly difficult.

I have another question about merged web helps: Is it possible to merge in a web-based help that was created from a different authoring tool? For one of our documentation projects, we're documenting objects, methods, properties of an API we provide, and we use Innovasys's Document X to manage that.

I've generated a web-based help from that tool. I can of course link to topics just fine, but I'm not sure if it's possible to merge in the TOC and all that. I don't think it's possible, but wanted to check to be sure.

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 7, 2018

Not something I have tried but I wouldn't expect it to work. RoboHelp is looking for source projects, not other outputs.

See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.
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