Enable Feedback and Print Feature in WebHelp Using RoboHelp 11

[priscillaa9287259]

Hi,

The WebHelp created using RoboHelp 11 has the feedback and print options available on all the topics. When user clicks Feedback icon, it opens the desktop mail option and when user clicks on the Print icon, it connects to the printer tagged to the desktop.

I do not have the file with me at present and I am trying to recreate the project. As far as I had been told, the feedback and print icons have code wrapped around it. I remember seeing a red square box whenever I click on the icon in the RoboHelp file. I never had the opportunity to learn how this was implemented as the person (who did the coding work) had moved out of the project.  I have found several instances online that points to the Insert HTML feature of RoboHelp. But I am not sure how to use this. Can somebody please provide me a step-by-step guide on how to implement the print and feedback options through code?

Even a tutorial wherein the insert HTML feature is talked about would be most helpful. I am not able to find any good tutorial on this feature of RoboHelp.

[Peter Grainge]

How far have you got with the recreation and what method are you using?

https://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/reverse_engineering/reverse_engineering.htm

I remember seeing a red square box whenever I click on the icon in the RoboHelp file.

Red square occur in two scenarios.

1. Your source files are not really source files, you have imported an output file into the source. They are very different files and are not interchangeable.
2. The topic has a script in it. That's OK.

Insert HTML is not what you are looking for.

Adding emails is described on my site.

https://www.grainge.org/pages/snippets/snippets.htm#email

Adding a print button is described at

https://www.grainge.org/pages/snippets/snippets.htm#webhelp

[priscillaa9287259]

Thanks Peter for your help. The first link that you shared enabled me to have the Print and Feedback functions easily available in the project file. I didnt need to implement any code changes as mentioned in your other 2 links. Thanks for these 2 references. However, I am not totally out of the woods, yet.

1. Coming to your question on recreating the project. Before reading your answer, I had created the master pages again and was preparing myself to manually copy paste the content and create the topics. I do have access to a functional WebHelp so the content is easily available. It would have been a tedious task - about 400 + topics to manually copy and paste. I was facing issue with only the Roboto font, Print and Feedback functions. But the reverse engineering link you shared have helped me to a great extent. However, I would require some clarification on below points:
2. After importing the topics, I saw that the master pages are not available in the Project Setup folder and also not reflected in the topic properties. Earlier, selection of master page was important so that breadcrumbs would appear correctly. Is this how is it going to be if I go down the reverse engineering path? No master pages? What can happen if I am able to gain back access to the original source file and decide to use the original source file and import any newly created topic from the reverse engineered project file? Will there be some kind of a conflict between topics?
3. Regarding breadcrumbs, what I found is that if I remove all the red boxes (as mentioned in the PDF downloaded from the link), the breadcrumbs also get removed. However, if I keep them, the breadcrumbs appear fine for respective topics. Will keeping these elements in the source file pose any problem?
4. Although the Styles pane reflect correctly the styles used in the project, I do not see the Roboto font name appearing for any of the styles.
5. The WebHelp that is deployed is a context-sensitive Help. Will the Dev team need to map the screens with the topics/HTML files once again if the WebHelp is generated from a reverse-engineered project file? What problems with this pose during integration?

[Peter Grainge]

I have numbered your paragraphs to make replying easier.

1. I just want to be sure you understand that copying the output files into source files is not a complete solution. In the source you may have three paragraphs in a topic with one tagged not to be included in the output you are looking at. If tagging was used, you will need to find all the outputs and search for the differences. Enjoy that one.
2. Master pages are source only. What is in them is made part of the output file, thus that needs to be cleaned out of the output files.
   If you are able to gain access to the source files, why would you want what is in what you have been rebuilding? I am assuming that you will not have been editing yet.
3. If those breadcrumbs are from the output files, that will be what the master pages added. I suspect when you recreate your master pages you could then end up with duplicates. Difficult to answer that one. Trial and error I think and I would be expecting error that way.
4. Probably not in RoboHelp 11. I don't know for sure and I no longer have that version on any machine.
5. I think the dev team will be able to give you details of the topics and their mapping so that you can reapply it. Then they should not need to do anything.

I don't have the Help Essentials script and haven't had to use it. I would check with them that it will work with RoboHelp 11. It will cost your company less than the time you will be spending on this rebuild. 

I would be asking IT to help. They are looking for any XPJ or CPD file on the network. I am guessing the author moved on and no one thought to save the contents of their machine's hard drive. It's a much better option than any rebuild.

Also look for any CHM file that has a likely sounding name. Reverse engineering from that is still not perfect but it's the nearest without spending money.

[priscillaa9287259]

Thanks Peter for your detailed response. PFB.

1. No, we do not use any tags in our Help as we do not need to generate different output types.

2. Due to the sudden lockdown, we were not able to upload the RoboHelp project to a location where it could be easily accessible. Since we haven't been able to update the Online Help for so many months and cannot get our hands on the source files in any manner while working from home, we are having to look at alternatives including this extreme option of recreating the entire project (it has more than 400 topics, PDFs, SWFs and also over 2GB file size)

3. I dont remember seeing the use of placeholder>breadcrumbs on the master pages. Also, the breadcrumbs that we use is represented as: Dummy lead-in text: Home>Topic name>Sub topic name. 

Do I need to create master pages in this re-engineered project file? My main concern is how the re-engineered project file would behave in the long run - the pain points. If the pain points outweigh the benefit, then would you suggest that I wait to get my hands on the source files once situation returns to normal. 

"Also look for any CHM file that has a likely sounding name." Can you please explain what you are referring to?

[Peter Grainge]

If the source files exist, I wouldn't even consider a rebuild. There's a lot of work and a lot of testing and, as you say, the pain points.

Is there not someone at the location where the source files are located who could zip them up and put the file somewhere you can download it? wetransfer.com is a useful free service.

A CHM file is an old type of output (Microsoft HTML Help). The fact that you have had to ask suggests you have not generated such a file.

[priscillaa9287259]

Thank you so much for your help. I have learnt a lot about RoboHelp from your responses.