Question
Webhelp created with RoboHelp HTML installed on Linux server hangs when viewed with Firefox
[This is a repost & update of a message that I posted on
the RoboHelp for HTML forum by mistake]
We have just started using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite to single-source our documentation and have worked out most of the kinks, save for one showstopper in the Webhelp generated with RoboHelp. We need our help system to work with both IE and Firefox. When the help is run locally on a Windows machine, both IE and Firefox work fine.
When the help is installed on our Linux-based server, opening the help causes Firefox to hang unless Firefox is configured to use Unicode encoding. Unfortunately, the Firefox default is Western European. We can't control our customers' environments, and we can't just document this problem because FireFox users won't be able to open the help system to read about the fix.
When investigating this problem, we discovered that RoboHelp is inserting extra characters at the beginning of some of the HTML files. These characters are ignored in IE as well as in Firefox when the help is installed locally, but when the help is installed on a Linux server, they causes Firefox to hang unless Firefox was configured to use Unicode encoding. It seems that on Linux, the characters are being converted to 3 garbage characters, which are visible if you look at the source code with Firefox.
This is a showstopper for us, unless a workaround can be found. My questions are:
1) Is this a known problem?
2) Is there a way to get RoboHelp to force Unicode encoding or to eliminate the characters altogether?
3) Is there a way to force FireFox to use Unicode encoding to display our help system (say, by changing our CSS file)?
Thanks!
We have just started using the Adobe Technical Communication Suite to single-source our documentation and have worked out most of the kinks, save for one showstopper in the Webhelp generated with RoboHelp. We need our help system to work with both IE and Firefox. When the help is run locally on a Windows machine, both IE and Firefox work fine.
When the help is installed on our Linux-based server, opening the help causes Firefox to hang unless Firefox is configured to use Unicode encoding. Unfortunately, the Firefox default is Western European. We can't control our customers' environments, and we can't just document this problem because FireFox users won't be able to open the help system to read about the fix.
When investigating this problem, we discovered that RoboHelp is inserting extra characters at the beginning of some of the HTML files. These characters are ignored in IE as well as in Firefox when the help is installed locally, but when the help is installed on a Linux server, they causes Firefox to hang unless Firefox was configured to use Unicode encoding. It seems that on Linux, the characters are being converted to 3 garbage characters, which are visible if you look at the source code with Firefox.
This is a showstopper for us, unless a workaround can be found. My questions are:
1) Is this a known problem?
2) Is there a way to get RoboHelp to force Unicode encoding or to eliminate the characters altogether?
3) Is there a way to force FireFox to use Unicode encoding to display our help system (say, by changing our CSS file)?
Thanks!
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