Inspiring

Question

Substring Search in CHM Output

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 11, 2024
5 replies
772 views

Hi, Is there any way to enable substring search in CHM output? If someone has (finally) found a different solution for a compressed, offline HTML output, I’d love to hear about it.

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A

Amebr

Community Expert

Ah yeah, when chm was developed I don't think any searches worked like that without wildcards. 20 years ago the similar words setting was cutting edge and i'm pretty sure it was only similar based on grammar rules like plural and tense (user vs users vs using) and even then was not hugely accurate. 🙂

A

Amebr

Community Expert

Hmm, I just tried it in an old chm i found on my PC (no idea what it was created using) and the find simialr words setting works in that one, but when I copy the text from that chm and generate one in RH the same search doesn't not work the same. So it almost seems like RH is not creating the search to spec somehow. However, getting any changes to how RH generates chms may be difficult.

ARR96Author

Inspiring

Thanks for trying that out. Where I'm specifically encountering a problem is in our programmers guide. People search for the name of an interface, but without the "I" that precedes it and the version number that follows it (e.g., the topic and interface name is IMeshLayer80 and they search for MeshLayer. Even when Find similar words is selected - the search comes up blank. One solution I guess is to create index entries for each of these abbreviated interface names so that they'll show up in the Index. But I'd like to hide the Search tab then (so that people don't perform failed searches). Is there a way to hide the Search tab in the CHM?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I believe it can be deselected in the Window settings.

Will you be swapping one problem for another if an index term doesn't find what the user wants?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Is the issue the developers don't want to ship multiple files or they don't want multiple files on the users' machines?

A exe will ship one file but the developers will have to then extract the files.

________________________________________________________
My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I understand your predicament. It somewhat amuses me that your company insist on you using a format that relies on the Microsoft Help Compiler that was last updated some twenty years ago and is no longer available to download from Microsoft's site. They pulled it a few years back.

It had security issues as described in CHMs on a Network (grainge.org). Are your IT people aware of this and would the developers use tools like this for their work? See if that helps you argue the case, if you want to.

Because CHMs rely on the Microsoft compiler, there are no tricks other than the one @Amebr has described.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

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A

Amebr

Community Expert

I assume you are using Robohelp RH2022. The process is similar for Robohelp Classic versions. If you're not using Robohelp, then you'll need to check on the forums for whichever tool you're using to generate the chm. 🙂

In your chm Window Settings, select the Adv. Search checkbox. If you don't have a window definition, create one and make sure that setting is selected. Make sure you select that window as the Default Window in the CHM output preset.

You'll then get some checkboxes at the bottom of the Search tab. I think "Match similar words" is the one you want.

This site provides more details about chm search. https://help-info.de/kb/HTMLHelp/100003-hh-faq-search-for-word-or-phrase-in-chm-file/#to-refine-a-full-text-search

ARR96Author

Inspiring

Thanks so much. I am indeed using RH 2022. The advanced search option is an improvement, but it still requires users to use wildcards in order to find a substring. Is there any way to automate that so that substrings will appear in the results even without adding an asterisk * before and after the search term?

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

You're talking about CHMs, right? These are an extinct form of output developmentally - MS dropped them ~~years~~ decades ago.

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