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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?

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Peter Grainge

Community Expert

When you followed by instructions you got a good output. I have some thoughts on that but let's just focus on getting your parent folder and projects working. That is what matters for you deadline.

I know you need a parent folder and I know your manager wants relative paths. Above all though you want something that works. Let's pursue that first.

If you can consistently generate my method with a good output, you just need to set up some Publish Profiles. Generate in the way that works, then go to the Author tab and set up a Publish profile that publishes that output to the folder within the parent. That copies the good output to where you want it.

That should work just fine. You then get your Manager to set things up the same way and test that.

It doesn't tell us what was wrong but it should get things working. Then hopefully Adobe will come back with the cause.

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deniseh47762385Author

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OK. I only thought of the Publish profiles for intranet (internet) locations but I never thought about it for the staging area for the development docs. I will try this Monday at work. Thanks! 🙂

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Try putting the project in C:\MyProject and generate to C:\MyOutput.

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deniseh47762385Author

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I thought folder/preset (and folder location as long as the output is not inside the actual project folder) "names" didn't matter but it appears to. Here are the results of some tests today:

Project - C:\MyProject\doc-flames-git
Output - C:\MyOutput\flames (folder outside C:\MyProject)
makes the Output Path ../../MyOutput/flames/ (one more level than before)
GOOD

Project - C:\MyProject\doc-flames-git
Output - C:\MyProject\HTML\flames *
Output Path ../HTML/flames/
BAD

Project - C:\MyProject\doc-flames-git
Output - C:\HTML\flames
Output Path ../../HTML/flames/
BAD

* We must have a "master" folder to contain our 4 separate project outputs and the project external links must be the same folder to work (it could be WebHelp, HTML - whatever as long as it works but must remain the same. I suppose I could copy/rename the "parent" folder afterwards but that's just more work (before I copy parent folder, run a .bat file to generate .cmp files for a developer to incorporate the docs into our software for install/downloads).
* Our 4 child projects/folders will be flames, fstarter, finterface and ftutorial (under the parent \HTML or other folder).
* My manager wants to keep Output Paths relative.
* Cleared browsing history and cache before opening index.htm.

How many TOC levels are permissible? I remember a setting in RH9 but not in RH2020/2022.

deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

I will try this at work tomorrow too. What were your results?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I strongly suspect if you installed RoboHelp on your home machine it would generate correctly.

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deniseh47762385Author

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I did install the RoboHelp 30-day trial at home, but it's 2022 vs 2020; I had to convert the project. I also updated to Version 2022.0.346.

I generated the flames project to C:\Users\dth\Downloads\AdobeTest\Docs\HTML\flames and the TOC issue still exists.

Did you have any luck?

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I have just generated the project you sent me as the bad project. The output is good and syncing correctly.

There has to be something at your end so please, please, please stop renaming things or I am out. Let's look at other possibilities.

Go back to what you sent me rather than the project in the state you have now moved it onto. Create a copy of it so that you still have the original.

Delete the contents of the .rh folder in Explorer and then open the project and generate again. Does the problem persist?

If it does, try it with an absolute path as well.

You will lose your preferences for this project but that's a minor issue.

Change nothing else and post back.

________________________________________________________

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deniseh47762385Author

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I did delete the contents of the .rh folder in Explorer and then open the project and generate again and the problem persist - both relative and absolute paths.

deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

I sent you some files to review.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I will compare the good and the bad as promised and report what I find. Until we know the cause of the TOC not syncing all this name changing is a distraction. Clearly you and your manager do not believe me on that but it is making it difficult to keep up with what is going on. I am fighting a moving target.

I hope you are keeping copies of what you have sent me. If not and if I find the problem, you may not be able to implement it as your project has moved on.

Please hold off posting anything else until I have completed my testing.

________________________________________________________

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 it still the case that an absolute path works for you? If so there is the workaround I suggested that you duplicate the preset and both use absolute paths to the output folder. Try it.

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deniseh47762385Author

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I created a 'Test-Absolute' Preset with an absolute Output path to D:/Development/HTML/flames/ (and also C:/HTML/flames/) and it still was bad.

I've been busy with other work so I have not tried to uninstall RoboHelp 2020.

I do have the latest 2020.8.0. I'm not sure if my manager has the latest yet. IDK if we can get 2022; we bought two 1-year subscriptions.

Since I did a "Find and Replace' to change the flames external project output links, I don't think that would make a difference, do you? I haven't generated those 3 projects and changed links yet; wanted to get this main one working; those were not having ay TOC issues.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Tomorrow I will generate an output from what I will call Bad Project and see if my output works. If it does, I will then compare my good output from that project with you bad output to locate the difference. In my earlier test the contents of the whxdate folder were very different.

I will also be comparing the two source projects for differences.

________________________________________________________

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

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deniseh47762385Author

Known Participant

Thanks for all your time and commitment! I really appreciate it.

My manager said: "Maybe those names can't be the same everywhere. Go back to using different names in different places, and see what happens."

I tried again with different Preset and Output Path folder names. [Preset-Folder]: HTML-HTML (bad) and TEST-TestHtml (good)? This was another copy on C drive too so that rules out the C vs D drive.

I did a [WinMerge] Compare on both output folders and they are very different. You can drill down to see the folder/file differences. It's very similar to the screenshots I took earlier today in my Compare files.docx.

I hope we can get to the bottom of this very soon since we have a software/doc delivery for a major new release in less than 2 weeks. My manager still has a lot of content to write.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

You have sent me another output. That is not what I asked for. I want the project that generated the bad output you sent.

CORRECTION - Ignore this post. I misread an email from WeTransfer.

I do want the project you generated the bad output from.

________________________________________________________
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 sent the project earlier this morning; you did not get it? I just sent you the email WeTransfer sent me.

Then I sent the output you asked for above.

I made changes this morning (preset/folders to HTML) and then generated (you have that output).

I did not generate the 3 other RH projects yet (external links) since I didn't think that mattered yet.

I did Compare the output you sent me to the "bad" HTML output I sent you. There are lots of differences. I will attach a .doc file.

What is the gTopicId?

Compare_files.docx

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

There is so much that has been flying around and changes being made I want to start afresh.

I want you to generate again and prove to yourself the output is bad. Then please send that version of the project and the new output.

I will then compare what I have that is working.

What is the gTopicId? Sorry what do you mean?

________________________________________________________

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

Hold that. First send me the project from which you generated the broken output. We must compare like with like.

________________________________________________________
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

Finally I am seeing the problem in what you generated.

Compare the Outputs

Check the output that I sent you works at your end first. Assuming it does take that unzipped output and your non-working output to your developers. They will have a file comparison tool such as Beyond Compare. Get them to check the two for differences. That should help locate what is wrong.

Installation Location

Let's investigate your setup. Where is RoboHelp installed? If it is anything other then the default...

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 2020

then uninstall it and reboot. Then install to the default location with admin rights.

In fact, do that even if it is in the right location.

Make sure use the latest version.

Download RoboHelp (adobe.com) and look for Summer 2020 release.

You could also consider upgrading to 2022 as it is covered by your licence. However, you may prefer to stick with 2020 at this point.

________________________________________________________

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

Use the menu (bottom right) to mark the Best Answer or Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

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