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Question

TOC not opening to the selected topic

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
September 20, 2022
42 replies
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We have a RoboHelp 2020 help project posted on our website. We have links to topics in the help project from other places on our website. For the URL in the link, we use the URL displayed in the address bar when the desired help topic is displayed, such as:

http://hsv.ternion.com/Documentation/flames21.0/WebHelp/flames/index.htm#t=SAS%2FCreating_a_User.htm

(Note that Creating_a_User.htm is in a folder named SAS.)

This works. The correct topic is opened in our help project when the link is selected. However, the TOC of our help project is not expanding to the proper place (to the entry associated with SAS/Creating_a_User.htm). Instead, the TOC is opening to some random place not associated with the topic.

Has anyone else experienced this issue, and do you know how to fix it?

New UI

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Today I am going to set up a number of structures to see what does and does not work.

After posting this I am going to lock this thread as it is now virtually impossible to follow. When I have tested the different structures I will email you with the results and we can continue that way.

I am going to be looking at three things.

Which ones produce an output where the TOC does not sync and which ones do sync.
Whether any of them show anything in the Broken Links report.
Whether the warnings when an output is generated are relevant.

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Please unzip the last version you sent me, the one I said do not touch after sending it to me. If you are not sure which one that is, I will send it back to you.
Check broken links in the Flames project. There are none.
Next copy the source projects anywhere you like. Move all the outputs to somewhere else away from what you sent. Remember you are dealing with the copies you sent me, not your real working projects and outputs.
Check the Broken Links report again. It will not have changed. It will still be empty. The output location has no relevance as I keep saying and neither does the relative path.

At one point you said something about having to change a lot of links. Could that be relevant.

Post back on that but then let's put a hold on things. You have something that works for now using Publish and Adobe are looking at why the setup you really want is giving a bad output. Let's give them time. We have got to a point where something is working, that addresses the issue of your deadline.

Please respond to the numbered points and then let's see what Adobe come back with. Otherwise we are just going round in circles.

________________________________________________________

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

In what you sent me I have tried both setups and I don't have any broken links.

The output location has nothing to do with broken links. Something else has changed.

I asked you not to touch what you sent me so how are you seeing broken links in that when I don't.

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

The very last AdobeTest.zip I sent you had 4 projects at the same level as the \HTML folder (parent \Docs). That's the structure we want but the TOC for flames project was not working.

You asked me to create C:\MyProject\ (4 copied projects inside this folder) and C:\MyOutput\ (output now up one level to the 4 project outputs).

In order to generate files, I had to change the Output Path up a level to ../../MyOutput/flames. That's why I now see the "Broken Links" in the project but the Published index.htm look good.

We need the 4 project folders to be at the same level as the \HTML folder (containing 4 folders for the generated output).

I'm so sorry that I'm not explaining myself clearly.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I'm backtracking as I was thinking of something else.

Please go to the project I asked you not to touch after zipping it and sending it to me. I have just looked at that and there are no broken links. Also broken links exist or they don't, that is independant of how you generate.

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

I know because the project folder was at the same level as the output folder.

deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

Which is what we want/need. C:\MyProject\ and C:\MyOutput\ are not in the same \MyProject location.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Before what?

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deniseh47762385Author

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Before I changed the Output Paths to a level above.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

You can't Publish w/o generating first.

No but it solves the problem and, as you say, the output works.

However, the project shows TONS of broken links and we don't want to see that.

As I said, that is because you are creating links that RoboHelp sees as broken because they are to topics not in the project. External links to topics will show as broken, nothing can be done. Links to websites will not report in that way. If the outputs are on your company servers for users to access, use the full URL to avoid that problem. There is no other solution that I know of.

I sure hope Adobe can resolve this issue.

Which one? If you mean the broken links then the answer is no. See above.

If you mean the problem of the bad outputs, as I have said, that is being looked into.

________________________________________________________

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

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

They were not displaying as Reports | Broken Links before; now they do since my output is a level up. I'm not worrying about the generated messages; I can understand that since RH does not know since they are external links.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I don't know why it is not working at the level you want, It is outside the project so it should work. That is what Adobe are looking at.

Meantime I have given you a solution that you were going to try, namely publishing to the required folder rather than generating to it. Did that work?

The broken links are links to topics that are not in your project, they come good in the publish location.

________________________________________________________

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

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

Yes, I did what you said. You can't Publish w/o generating first. The Published files seem okay.

However, the project shows TONS of broken links and we don't want to see that. If we try to fix them, they will be wrong in the publish...

I sure hope Adobe can resolve this issue.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I have managed to create a bad output. Taking it up with Adobe. Meantime do try the Publish solution as it should resolve the issue for the time being.

________________________________________________________

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

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

Good morning and thank you for your assistance over the weekend.

Well, the C:\MyProject\doc-flames-git and the output to C:\MyOutput\flames works in the Publish files BUT we must have the publish files to be under C:\MyProject\HTML\<project name> not a level above/down. Why is that output not good? It's still outside of the source project folders?

The Output Path ../../MyOutput/flames/ creates another level and it's not consistent with our software doc delivery (up one level, down into the other if external links).

Also, in the project Reports | Broken Links, all the external links show as broken links now (although the Published output is okay); this is unacceptable since there are many broken links and we can't easily find ones. See attachments (we'll change the WebHelp to HTML).

Any help from Adobe on our issue? TIA

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Exactly which version of RoboHelp 2020 are you running in the office?

________________________________________________________

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

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

I have Version 2020.8.0

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Basically if you can both generate using either a relative or absolute path, that's the first hurdle. Next you need to get that output to wherever you want it. That is where publishing comes in. You will have your profile and your manager will have his.

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

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