Inspiring

Question

RoboHelp viewer

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
August 22, 2012
2 replies
6425 views

Does anyone know what viewer WebHelp is displayed in when displayed from an applicaiton via a call to RH_ShowHelp? We're using RoboHelp ver7. Is it IE? or the MFC CHTMLView Class?

We've had an annoying bug for a number of years and are wondering if changing the viewer would help. In the Index pane, if you type in the beginning of an index topic, it is supposed to scroll to the topic you've typed in. It seems if you have a large number of index items, it doesn't scroll. It seems to work if you run the help by itself in a browser, but not in the application.

This topic has been closed for replies.

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epsobolikAuthor

Inspiring

I downloaded and installed RoboHelp 2015. I have context help working, but the Index is still an issue. When I double click on the Start page and when I View generated help, go to the Index, and start typing a keyword, it syncs to the keyword list. However, in the application we always display a help topic (#>id =xxx at the end of the URL). When I display a help topic this way (via RH_ShowHelp() in RoboHelp_CSH.cpp), click 'Show', go to the Index and start typing a keyword, it doesn't sync to the keyword list.

Is there a way to emulate just opening the Start page?

I tried putting '#>cmd=idx' at the end of the URL to the Start page. That brought up the Index, but it still didn't sync.

It appears that displaying the Start page from the .htm file (default help topic?) and displaying a specific topic or command (via RH_ShowHelp()) causes the index to behave differently.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

As Rick says, I don't think you're going to get much help on here except from Adobe staff developers. Most of us are using CSH launched in a browser; you seem to be trying to use the C++ CSH API (from what I can tell based on the file names) - what led you use that method vs. say, JavaScript, to launch the help?

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epsobolikAuthor

Inspiring

The application is written in C++ - 900K+ lines of C++ code! How would I use JavaScript to launch the help from a C++ program?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

If you simply double click the start page, WebHelp opens in the default browswer on the user's PC. I thought that was the case with the method you are using but no doubt someone else can confirm that. What is puzzling me with your question is that you should be able to see what browser is being used, unless your developer's have made the window chromeless. Even then, they could undo that to find the answer.

As to the index issue, that was a problem several versions back. Try downloading the trial of RoboHelp 10 onto a non production machine. I think you will find it is OK now.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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epsobolikAuthor

Inspiring

Hmmm. It was still in ver9. I reported it when 7 was new! This is the first acknowledgement that it was a real problem. I will check ver10.

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epsobolikAuthor

Inspiring

Robohelp 10 is worse than ver 7!!! Not only does the index not scroll when you type in the box at the top, but clicking on a topic in the index gets you a 'This program cannot display the webpage' error. Some of the 'text links' display a directory of the help folder. Others seem to work, however.

BTW, when you open a help message in C++ code with the RH_ShowHelp() function, it is displayed in a naked screen - just the help content - no hint of a browser. Similar to what you get when you run a .hta program. If you right-click in the display area of the window, you get the same menu you get in a browser. But you get the same thing if you use the CHTMLView class to display an HTML page in an application. When the help is displayed, there isn't an instance of a browser in the Task Manager.

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