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heavywriter
Known Participant
December 22, 2010
Question

RoboHelp and ZoomSearch in Toolbar Main

  • December 22, 2010
  • 4 replies
  • 705 views

I produce KB's for my company that seem to be the rave.  User base is expanding to the entire company and I need to honestly address the failing of RH8's flawed (though better than RH7) Search. I am looking at ZoomSearch.   My customers want search input from any topic.  Not search linked from any topic. But, of course, focus groups (yes... ugh!) liked having the search input field on the toolbar even when I suggested that we can put the search input on each topic or master page header.

I've read the original postings on this (http://forums.adobe.com/message/737933) I'm not really satisfied with the answer - that one cannot place the search field for ZoomSearch in a WebHelp toolbar without developer help. I profusely apologize for being such an upstart for even suggesting that Peter and others might have overestimated the core issue.

As I stated above, you can add the search form to any page.  Why can you not add it to the toolbar in the skin?  I realize the skin editor is too GUI-based to be much help here, but is there some what to get right to the code for the toolbar main and just permanently into the toolbar .htm file within the top frame?

<form method="get" action="<path>search.html"> Would need to modify with frame or target ="main"
<input type="text" name="zoom_query" size="10" style="width: 300px;" />

<input type="submit" value="Search" />
</form>

I realize one drawback to this would be that whatever topics are placed in the project must have the same relative path to the search files.  Peter's tutorial solves one end of that with the suggested "search_files" folder.  You could also have all files in the project top folder (may work for some, not for me).

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Steve

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4 replies

MergeThis
MergeThis
Inspiring
December 22, 2010

"overestimated the core issue"? Yikes, what the heck does that mean?

To do what you want will require the efforts of a developer, period. As would embedding the help in your software app, as would setting permissions for viewing only portions of the help by user role, as would...well, are you getting the picture?

To configure Zoom for our help, we disabled the default RH Search button and added a custom Search button that links to the Zoom search.html file (the separate page that contains input and results). In addition, we run the Zoom JavaScript mode so as not to have to rely on any developers' efforts.

Good luck,

Leon

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 22, 2010

I'll join with Leon in wishing you luck.

Am I right in understanding that you have got the search input field into every topic and have the search working? Presumably the topic is replaced by the search results.

You now want that search field in the toolbar plus a button to invoke the search when the search term has been entered. Quite simply I don't know of any way to get the search field into the skin, then you have the issue of the button picking up the search term and returning the results in a different frame.

I'm not going to say it cannot be done but I do believe it will take a developer or someone with some developments skills. If you look at ZoomSearch's own help, the closest they have come is having the Search link invoke a similar panel to RoboHelp's own search. They use a different HAT.

If you do achieve this, please post back and hopefully share the solution.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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heavywriterAuthor
Known Participant
December 22, 2010

Thank you both for your answers.

Peter - yes, I have been able to post the search input field (with the code above) as a snippet in each master page - once criteria is input, it is replaced with the search results page in the main frame.  However, the primary consideration when doing such a thing is to ensure the relative path back to the search form remains the same for every topic in the project.  That "could" be troublesome at some future time if someone places a new topic improperly (unless you have multiple search snippets for different relative paths (i.e., down one to search scripts, up and down, up 2 and down one).

"overestimated the core issue": I think the core issue is just moving the form to the top frame.  If one could access that top frame file and prevent it from being overwritten during generation, one could do it outside the skin editor (similar to how one would customize the About box to replace the "WebHelp" graphic).  I really think it's that simple.  Then again, maybe I'm grossly understimating it... I tend to not accept a "no" answer when I can articulate the problem.

For now, I think I can sell it as within each topic as the snippet mentioned above.  Bringing a developer would add weeks to the job in which hours matter.

Again, thank you both for your help.  If breaking down the problem as I have gave you more ideas, I'd love to hear it.

Steve

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