Cannot Open CNT file

[hpankin]

Hello all.

Here's some background. I've been making winhelp files for 12 years and my firm has a considerable number of legacy help systems in this format. Using Robohelp 6, we're going to convert them for the web one day but we're just not there yet.

Here's the situation: using Robohelp 6, I'm compiling a help system that incorporates the keyword index from another .HLP file. For this reason, a .CNT file gets created automatically. Because I do not have a TOC in this project, this .CNT file contains only two lines: ":Base 34821_32.hlp" and ":Index OE=348oe.hlp" Essentially, it serves as a pointer for the secondary .HLP file to aid in the creation of the full index listing. These projects were created using Robohelp Office 2002, by the way. Robohelp 6 converted them in what I thought was a smooth fashion at first.

Here's what's happening: The project compiles without incident but I can't even test this help file locally without getting an error message telling me that it cannot open the .CNT file on "S:\CLIENTS". The text string "S:\CLIENTS" does not exist anywhere in the project. I've run the Winhelp Bug Hunter on it too but it doesn't tell me anything useful, or at least, I cannot see anything obviously wrong. The other weird thing: I've got several other projects like this (where the index listing is comprised of two separate help screens) and they all work just fine. I've compared them to this bad project and once again, I cannot spot anything really wrong with it.

So what happened to my project? Any guesses?

[RoboWizard]

Hi hpankin

Is S:\Clients where you initially pulled this .CNT file from?

I've forgotten so much about WinHelp development that what I actually remember would struggle to fill a small thimble. So I'm not sure if it's a good practice to have projects or parts thereof that are located on a network resource. I know it's a bad practice in the RoboHelp HTML world.

I'm thinking that if at any point in the process you did bring this file in from S:\Clients, perhaps placing the file locally and inserting it after moving it locally might correct the issue.

Just a thought... Rick

[hpankin]

Hey RW, that's what's so puzzling: the project is being worked on locally. If I worked on Winhelp projects over a network, I'd likely not have lasted for 12 years. ; )

We deliver the .hlp file to network drives, of course, one of which is a location that just so happens to be mapped to my "S" drive in a folder called "clients". That "s:\clients" command is coming from somewhere but I cannot find the source! I've searched all the text-based files (hpj, hpr, doc, rtf, etc) for this string and it doesn't exist.