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DavidHutchinson
Known Participant
November 3, 2017
Question

Replacing context sensitive CHM help with context sensitive HTML Responsive Help

  • November 3, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1037 views

Hi everyone,

Our product links to multiple CHM files authored in Robohelp 2015. Each screen in the product links to a different help topic. For the CHM help, we use help IDs in the .HH file and aliases in the .ALI file.

For example, for the help topic which explains how to log in, we have an entry in the .HH file and another in the .ALI file.

In the .HH fileIn the .ALI file
#define Login 100<alias name="Login" link="its:Help.chm::/Logon.htm"></alias>

In our product, we have a function that opens the CHM file and passes the relevant help ID to RoboHelp to display the topic.

Now we want to change to responsive HTML5 help published online. But ideally, we'd want to keep the Help IDs that we use in the code.

  • Can help IDs be used for web help?
  • If yes, does RoboHelp use the .HH and .ALI files for web help?

For example, would this work for web help?

In the .HH file
In the .ALI file
#define Login 100<alias name="Login" link="its:www.webserver.com/Logon.htm"></alias>

If not, what is the process for creating context-sensitive web help using Help IDs?

Thanks very much in advance,

David.

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

D
DavidHutchinsonAuthor
Known Participant
November 14, 2017

Thanks for your help Amebr.

A
Community Expert
AmebrCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 6, 2017

I'm pretty sure you shouldn't have to change what you're doing in Robohelp, but the developers will need to change how they call help.

There's a section in the RoboHelp help under Context Sensitive Help called "Information for developers" which contains information about the call for different programming languages including a guide to where to find the files developers will need to import if you follow those methods. Note I haven't tried those methods, but inside the Javascript  developer file there is information about using it with multiscreen html5. (there's no specific mention that I can find of html5 csh in the RH11 help, and I assume that is also the case for RH2015).

Willam has also provided details on a different method on the Help Essentials site, covering both multiscreen and html5:

https://www.helpessentials.com/2017/08/05/context-sensitivity-in-responsive-and-multiscreen-html5/ 

Hopefully this will get you started.

D
DavidHutchinsonAuthor
Known Participant
November 10, 2017

Thanks Amebr, I'll take a look.

I'm sure you're right about the developers having to call the help differently, and I'll also have to change the ALI file too to point to a web server rather than a chm file, assuming I can still use the ALI file to map the topics to the IDs.

A
Community Expert
AmebrCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 13, 2017

Ah, yes, if you chm name is hard coded in the ali, then you'll have to re-map. (Although from memory, that was only needed when using a parent/child setup - it this the case for you?)

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