Calling context-sensitive help - frameless vs responsive (the #t=)

[Tejas Dandekar]

I have a question. I am looking at this article: https://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/rh_tour/rh2020/outputs/calling_csh_help.htm.

The Responsive HTML5 output of the Online Help is currently working perfectly for us. Now that we are moving to RH2020 and the new Frameless Output, I understand there will be minor updates in the help call per the above article. I will be sharing the above URL with my server development team to apprise them of the change.

Rudimentary question, I am not very technical sorry, but would just excluding the #t= part from the Responsive HTML5 URL work?

[Amebr]

It depends on how the context help call has been set up by your developers.

Assuming you're currently using Responsive HTML5 in RH Classic:

• if they used the mapid method, there shouldn't be any change.
• If they used the url method without navigation, I don't think any change is needed
• If they used the url method with navigation, they'll need to remove 'index.htm#t='
• If they used the CSH API method (not covered in that topic) then I don't think any change will be needed either. For CSH API info see https://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/calling_help/calling_help.htm

I'm pretty sure I got that all around the right way, but I'm not currently using CSH, so haven't been actively looking at the latest changes. 🙂

[Peter Grainge]

Amber's answer is correct, perhaps this explanation will help with understanding the URL part.

You can call responsive help using the URL path/topic_name.htm. What you will get is just that topic without the TOC etc.

To get the TOC etc you need path/index.htm#t=path/topic_name.htm. Think of the URL as a route and what the highlighted part is effectively telling you need to stop off at that point and pick up the TOC etc, then continue on your route. There are "path" before index.htm is the path to the stop off point and the "path" after it is the rest of the route.

With frameless outputs, that information is included in every output topic so just the path and the topic name is sufficient. Thus path/topic_name.htm is all that is required.

With 2019 New UI and 2020, no API is provided.

It was added back in during one of the updates. Thanks @Amebr for the correction.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Dean5EA1]

Is there a way to put the #t= back into the URL? We went from classic to frameless and lost all of our external links into our manual due to this addressing change.

[Amebr]

@Peter Grainge I checked the installation folder for 2020 before I posted and the CSH API folder was there, at least for 2020.4. Maybe they forgot to include it with some of the initial releases?

[Peter Grainge]

@Dean5EA1 Not from within RoboHelp. This is something your developers will have to do.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Dean5EA1]

To clarify RH classic generated the pages with #t= , but developers are needed to have this address added to every page RH2020 Responsive 5 generates? Meaning everytime an update to the output is genreated teh developers would need to go in an adjust the address to all of the pages to inclue #t=?  However, if the #t= is added to the page URL address the system defaults the home page to load, rather than the specific page selected. I think I am missing a link to help undertstand how to resolve the issue.

[Peter Grainge]

Your calls currently include #t= because that is how they were set up for responsive. The calls for frameless do not need that.

The developers need to make a one off change for the URLs to use frameless. Then whenever you generate a frameless update, the links will still be good.

The link above describes the calls to frameless. 

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Dean5EA1]

Thank you Peter, I will look into the link and work with IT to see if we cannot fix this.