A

Anonymous

Answered

auto-create browse sequence not working

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
March 31, 2008
4 replies
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I'm having the same problem with the TCS that PaulB1234 described in the General Discussion forum, except that I'm generating HTML output and I have only one FM book in the project. When I click "Auto-create browse sequences from TOC," the browse sequence list remains empty. The RH Help says to click "Yes" at the "To enable browse sequences" dialog box, but no dialog box appears.

PaulB1234 wrote:
"I'm using RoboHelp 7 and FrameMaker 8 in the Technical Communication Suite. I added three FrameMaker 8 book files by reference to my RH 7 project and I converted each book's TOC. I then added three placeholder TOCs in the default TOC for the FrameMaker TOCs so that all three TOCs would be generated in the WebHelp output. That all works fine.

"But when I choose "Tools>Browse Sequence Editor", click the "Auto-create using TOC" button, and choose the default TOC in the "Auto-create Browse Sequences Using TOC" dialog box, no sequences appear in the list of Browse Sequences. I tried selecting the other TOCs also that were converted from the FrameMaker TOCs and that didn't work either.

"What am I doing wrong? Or is there another step before this? Or is this a bug in RH?"

FrameMaker integration

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Correct answer

If you have RoboHelp patch 7.0.1 installed on your machine (which it seems), browse sequence editor should generate the browse sequences. Just to make sure, please do a Force Update before generating the browse sequences.

For generating browse sequence in CHM, you should add a window (View->Pods-> Project Set up), create a window and select show browse sequences. Make sure Mircosoft HTML Help is your primary layout.

When generating CHM output, select the window you created and the TOC, browse sequences should work fine.

Thanks! After doing a Force Update, I was able to autogenerate the browse sequence from the TOC.

I'm not familiar with browse sequences as such. We are trying to replace a WWP default feature that allows the user to step through all topics in order. The browse sequence automatically created by RH provides similar functionality, but you can only step through topics in a single chapter. There is a drop-down list of chapters so that you can select another one, but they are in alphabetical order, not sequential order. This makes it difficult to go through the help "page by page" as it were.

Is there a way to set up end-to-end browsing? Meanwhile I will have a look at the available controls.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Without testing, I suspect that might be as good as it gets. Don't forget, you can drag and drop the topics to new locations or use the arrow buttons.

Would it be quicker and easier to forget the autocreate and manually create from the folders?

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A

Anonymous

If we go with RoboHelp, I will find a way! Thanks.

A

Anonymous

Hi,
Try the following, and see if it helps you.
1. In RH, open the TOC
2. Add a 'New TOC Book' entry (e.g. FMTOCBOOK)
3. Move all the existing entries in the TOC to under FMTOCBOOK (now, at the top level, you will see only 1 entry)
4. Do a Save All, just to be safe
5. In the Browse Sequence, delete the existing entries
6. Do a 'Autocreate Using TOC', and select the above TOC. Put 1 as the number to begin with (you can experiment with this later)
7. Generate your help, and check the browse sequence.
Regards,
--Sumeer

Using a root or master book is an interesting suggestion, but it produces the same result as using 0 without one. The sequence visits all the h1's, then returns to the first one and visits all the h2's, then within the first h1 > h2 visits all the h3's, and so on.

I tried altering the browse sequence directly in the .BRS file using a text editor, and that works. Therefore it's possible to generate the sequence I want by processing the .HHC file. Any scripting language could easily handle this task.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

Try setting that number to 0.

I think that will do it.

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A

Anonymous

Almost! When I set it to 0 I get a single browse sequences, but the sequence is:

1. > 2. > 1.1. > 1.2. > 1.3. > 2.1. > 2.2. > 1.1.1. > 1.1.2.

A

Anonymous

correction -- the sequence is:

1. > 2. > 1.1. > 1.2. > 1.3 > 1.1.1. > 1.1.2. > 2.1. > 2.2.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

You say you have autogenerated the browse sequence from the TOC. That should then allow the user to step through all the topics that are in that TOC, not just the content of one book.

Try trashing the browse sequence and starting again but change the number in the dialog that appears to match the number of levels of books in the TOC.

Main Book
###Child Book 1
######SubChildBook 1

would require 3 to be entered to get all the topics in that setup.

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A

Anonymous

I specified three levels when I generated the browse sequence. RH is generating not one browse sequence, but a series of them, one for each chapter in the FM book.

The way we build our TOC in FM is slightly unorthodox. Each of our chapters begins, not with Heading1, but with a special tag that uses a reference graphic and an autonumbering setting to designate "Chapter 1" or "Appendix A" . In the TOC, we include these tags, formatting them to look like side heads next to each title.

I'll set up a simpler h1/h2/h3 TOC and try it out.

A

Anonymous

Building a Frame TOC with just Heading1, Heading2, and Heading3 makes no difference. I still get multiple browse sequences.

The generated TOC is fine -- it looks just like the FM TOC. But in the generated browse sequences, I get a separate sequence for each h1-h2 transition and for each h2-h3 transition. In other words, if my TOC is like this (and I'm not actually using numbered sections, this is just to provide a quick example)::

1.
1.1.
1.1.1.
1.1.2.
1.2.
1.3.
2.
2.1.
2.2.

I get a browse sequence for 1. > 1.1. > 1.2., then a browse sequence for 2. > 2.1. > 2.2., then a browse sequence for 1.1. > 1.1.1. > 1.1.2.

Is this normal? Anyway what I'd like to generate automatically is a single browse sequence 1. > 1.1. > 1.1.1 > 1.1.2 > 1.2 > 1.3. > 2. > 2.1 > 2.2.

J

JainVivek

Inspiring

Have you imported your TOC in RoboHelp? Have you selected that TOC? Also, confirm if you patch 7.0.1 installed for RoboHelp.

A

Anonymous

Yes, I've set up a TOC --it looks fine in the CHM output -- and I've selected the TOC when setting up the auto browse sequence. (If you select an empty TOC, RH displays a warning.). The RH "About" says it's 7.01.001.

J

JainVivek

Inspiring

If you have RoboHelp patch 7.0.1 installed on your machine (which it seems), browse sequence editor should generate the browse sequences. Just to make sure, please do a Force Update before generating the browse sequences.

For generating browse sequence in CHM, you should add a window (View->Pods-> Project Set up), create a window and select show browse sequences. Make sure Mircosoft HTML Help is your primary layout.

When generating CHM output, select the window you created and the TOC, browse sequences should work fine.

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