Creating hyperlinks between two Robohelp projects

[sia09]

I am trying to link a topic in a Robohelp project  to another topic in another Robohelp project but it is not working. I have Robohelp 10. The two projects are kept at the same location. And the generated output of the second file is kept inside the first project.

[Peter Grainge]

Let's try and straighten out this thread as there are incorrect statements and procedures that as far as I can see cannot be correct. After the original post, each reply has a number against it. I will be referring to those numbers.

In Post 3, you state the root problem is that after creating a link in one project, when you click it in the output you get a "Could not connect" message. In Post 4 I explained why that is. Since then various posts have proposed solutions that are not working but ultimately that will always come back to the point in Post 4. Unless the relative path in the code is the correct relative path between the two outputs, it will not work in a month of Sundays. Do you understand the difference between a relative path and an absolute path?

Now lets look at some other posts in the thread.

In Post 5 you state you do not want to merge the content as you want two different help outputs. From one source project you can create many different outputs using conditional build tags. That enables specific topics to be in all outputs or just some. Is that a concept that you are aware of? If you are, then why else do you want to keep the source projects separate?

In Post 7 you state the link is correct. Let me correct that statement. It is correct as far as the source files are concerned, it is not correct as far as the outputs are concerned as if you look at the relative paths between the two topics, I believe you will find they are different.

In Post 18 Nitika has proposed a solution and I would be interested to know if Nitika tested that and got it to work.

In Post 19 you state that your project just has internal links, no external links. Wrong. All the links to the second project are external links as far as the first project is concerned.

In Post 24 Nitika says to "place the entire second project inside first project and then create links". @Nitika Do you mean import the second project into the first one and then use build tags to create different outputs? If so, that is what I have asked about above. If you don't mean that, what do you mean? It used to be possible to have two projects hanging off of one folder but I think that was about twenty years ago!

@Sheetal What is your level of understanding of RoboHelp? My gut feel here is that you are going about what you want to achieve in the wrong way. Having said that, I am not clear why you need two help outputs but to also have links between them. What is the use scenario? I would also suggest you stop trying to make this work with your real help projects and set up a couple of test projects with just a few topics. At the moment you probably cannot see the wood for the trees. Also you would then be able to zip it all up so that others can look at what you are doing.

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@petergrainge

[nitikamangla]

Hi Peter,

The solution that is mentioned in Step17 is tried and tested, it works fine.

As hyperlink creates relative paths, when topics are linked between two projects, it is required that the webHelp outputs of those projects should have same structural heirarchy as their projects have.

For e.g.:

I created a hyperlink on text "Delete" in First Topic to point to "New Topic1" present in "Project2"  , in the output shows like this

<a href="../Project2/New_Topic1.htm">Delete</a>

If Project1 is generated at: "C:\project1\!SSL!\WebHelp\index.htm"

For link to work in output, Project2 WebHelp folder should be generated at: C:\project1\!SSL!\Project2\index.htm so that relative path that is created works correctly.

Thanks and Regards

Nitika Mangla

[sia09]

I am aware of the concepts like relative path, absolute path, and conditional tagging.

As far as merging is concerned, I dint want to merge as the TOC of both projects would be merged. However, I will think of merging if the cross linking (which is working now) does not work on customer end.

I haven't used conditional tagging as the two project files have entirely different content. The projects are somewhat related to each other, that is why we need to cross link them.  

In Post 19, I had stated that my project just has internal links, no external links. I meant that the project did not contain external links earlier. And currently, I am creating external links.

Nitika's resolution obviously was not meant to work. 

My level of understanding of Robohelp may not be high but of course I have a mid level understanding.

I need two different outputs, one without linking and one with linking. That is why I have maintained two different projects.

Anyways, thanks for your inputs. As I have mentioned in Post 25, the cross linking is working now. The other two options of cross linking are merging and calling Map Ids.

[nitikamangla]

You can also refer to the following documentation for creating hyperlinks:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/10.0/RoboHTML/WS7380F112-33CB-4a41-BE0C-18D907147529.html#WS5b3...

Thanks and Regards

Nitika Mangla