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A
Anonymous
July 19, 2006
Question

Search Function in Web Help

  • July 19, 2006
  • 3 replies
  • 570 views
I used RoboHelp years ago and produced .chm files to deliver on CDs. Now I produce WebHelp (context sensitive, but also can be accessed from my "Welcome" page) that runs on an intranet. I thought I remembered the Search function as a field where you could type a word and it would return topics in which that word was located. Now it seems that it's just a listing of every word in the Help and the number of occurrences (from which you can click to view the topic). Is there any way to change this type of Search? Some of the "search" words that are presented are words that I don't want in the Search function. Can I delete words from Search? By the way, I searched this site for an answer to this question, but didn't see one right away. Thanks for help. Lisa in Roswell
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    3 replies

    H
    HKabaker
    Inspiring
    November 15, 2007
    Have you tried the option with applets included?

    H
    CraigCC
    CraigCC
    Inspiring
    July 20, 2006
    Hi Lisa in Roswell,

    Read your post a couple of times to try and work out what is going on. I'm going to throw in one other possibility.

    When you generate the help file what Preferred Format select? You select the format on the third third 'Options Window' displayed when you generate a single source layout. If you select the format 'Pure HTML' you will indeed see the behavior that you have described. If this is the case, try selecting another format (e.g. DHTML > Pure HTML) and check the output.

    Apologies if I've misinterpreted your problem
    Kind Regards
    Craig
    A
    Anonymous
    July 20, 2006
    This worked. That was the problem. Thanks very much. Lisa
    Peter Grainge
    Community Expert
    Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    July 20, 2006
    The Search function is a field where you can type a word and it will return topics in which that word is located. So when you state that is what is WAS and then say "NOW it seems that it's just a listing of every word in the Help and the number of occurrences" I can't quite see the difference.

    It is a listing of all the words in the help, that is pretty much what any search is although they do vary in their ability to deal with multiple words and so on.

    RH has a default Stop list and you can add to that. Click File | Project Settings and then click the Advanced button. You will see a list of excluded words that you can add to. That is the approach rather than hacking the list produced when you generate the help.
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    A
    Anonymous
    July 20, 2006
    Hi lfhall,

    Assuming you're using IE, it sounds like you haven't clicked the information bar above the help and allowed blocked content. When you do that, the search changes to show the search field that you want. I believe the search also appears as a list under some other browsers, but I can't tell you which ones.

    Anne
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