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R
roger832
Participant
January 22, 2009
Question

Breadcrumbs Show Incorrect Path

  • January 22, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 590 views
Hi All,

We use RoboHelp 7 to generate a WebHelp system for our application. The TOC of this Help system is largely based on the heirarchy of modules and features in the application's GUI. This means that occasionally a topic will appear under multiple books. The problem that we've noticed is that when you click the 2nd or 3rd occurrance of a topic (from the top), the breadcrumbs path for the 1st occurrance of the topic is always shown.

A simplified example: Topic A appears in Book 01 and in Book 02. Accessing either occurance of Topic A always displays this breadcrumbs path: Home > Book 01 > Topic A.

If we reverse the order so that Book 02 appears first (from the top) in the TOC, the breadcrumbs path for both occurrances of Topic A is: Home > Book 02 > Topic A.

This issue stems directly from the filename of the Help topic file. If we use different filenames for each occurrance of the topic, the breadcrumbs work as expected. Because of the size of our Help system and the way that it is organized, we'd prefer not not to use multiple copies of the same document.

Is there anyway to override this, so that the correct path is shown regardless of which occurrance of Topic A a user clicks?

I have a small sample Help sytem that I can email if you'd like a more graphic example this.

Thanks,
Roger
This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
January 22, 2009
Welcome to our community, Roger

To all: Roger also cross posted this question to the Help Authoring Tools and Techniques (HATT) community. I posted the same reply there.

Hi Roger

One way you might be able to overcome it would be to use redirects. Just create several redirect pages that ultimately point to the same page and insert the redirects in the TOC locations.

But I'm thinking that may not be optimal. I'm thinking it would accomplish the different entry points, but the ultimate page wouldn't have the proper breadcrumb trail.

Thinking.... tap tap tap.... thinking...

Aha! What about this? You might do something similar. Create multiple pages for the TOC. The pages would have the correct breadcrumb trails, no? Then for the main body parts, declare a large snippet and plop the snippet on each page. I'm thinking that might work.

Cheers... Rick
R
roger832Author
Participant
January 22, 2009
Thanks for the tips, Rick.

I agree that the snippet solution sounds better. Unfortunately, we aren't using snippets currently, and we're not in a position at this point in the release cycle to implement them.

I did try the redirect solution, which did not work. When the target topic is still in the TOC, the breadcrumbs path still shows only the path to the first occurrance of the topic in the TOC. If the target topic isn't included in the TOC, no breadcrumbs path appears.

Again, thanks for the help.
Roger
RoboWizard
RoboWizard
Inspiring
January 22, 2009
Hi Roger

Not sure I understand the hesitation with snippets, as they are super simple to create and use and should pose minimal (if any) risk to an existing project. Particularly given that you wouldn't really be modifying any existing topics. You would create all new stuff and use some copy/paste trickery.

To each his/her own I suppose. I'm sure you have your reasons.

Cheers... Rick
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