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A
Anonymous
April 22, 2009
Question

Still unclear about merging in WebHelp (runtime)

  • April 22, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 3839 views

This is my first venture into the world of RoboHelp and I have the following query:

We have an application which is made up from a framework and one or more plug-in modules (which can be supplied at a later date).

The framework help is installed on the customers PC by default and the plug-in help is installed when they buy/install a plug-in.

Is there a way to present all the installed help under the framework help without including dead links to missing plug-ins?

Customer A has framework and plug-in X so sees these in the TOC, etc.

Customer B buys plug-in Y and next time the help is opened sees plug-in X and Y in the TOC etc.

I know this can be achieved with CHM help but we are looking at using WebHelp.

I've seen the references to the 'Grainge method' but I believe this to be a build-time merge solution rather than a run-time one.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

RoboColum_n_
RoboColum_n_
Legend
April 22, 2009

Hi and welcome to the RH community.

This is a lot easier to accomplish with CHMs. As Webhelp is centrally stored and accessed by lots of users with potentially lots of different plug ins, this creates a number of different problems. My first question would be where will the webhelp be installed? If on a central server that all clients would access, I don't think you could "hide" portions of it for certain users. If you installed the webhelp on a customer intranet, you could ship the relevent sections of the help as they buy a plug in. Provided you use the structure in Peter's article this should work.

Read the RoboColum(n) for mutterings on RoboHelp, Technical Communication Suite and technical communication.

A
Anonymous
April 23, 2009

OK, I downloaded the merge example zip archive and rebuilt all the projects again on my PC.

Works as expected:

Child 1. Child 2, Child 3 all listed in the TOC

If I remove the folder (from the mergedProjects folder) for Child 2 then Child 1 and Child 3 are still displayed in the TOC, perfect!

I created a similar set of projects from scratch (following the merge tutorial) and these behave slightly differently:

If I remove Child 2 then only Child 1 is displayed in the TOC and I lose Child 3 as well...

Can't quite see what the difference is in the projects compared to the example though.

Any pointers?

Thanks

RoboWizard
RoboWizard
Inspiring
April 23, 2009

Hi there

I'm thinking that perhaps this has to do with your Table of Contents. Assuming all the merges are at the same TOC level (which is what you want) Perhaps give this a try.

Add a page to the TOC that appears at the bottom and follows the last merge reference. See if that changes anything.

Cheers... Rick

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