Frameless doesn't publish index.htm in the URL?

[Sleant]

Using RH 2022.0.346, we tested publishing to frameless and noticed that the URL address/path no longer has index.htm in it like responsive HTML5 does. I did check in the Frameless>Output>General the "Start Page" has index.htm and the Output>Framless>Content> has the "Include Index" checkbox checked.

Is this the way frameless is? Can I get the index.htm back into the URL? Thank you all so much for any insight.

[Peter Grainge]

That's the way frameless is. Index.htm was a way of opening the TOC, the toolbar and the default topic. Now the TOC and toolbar are part of each topic so the URL is the path to the topic.

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My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[Sleant]

Oh no, Peter. We have 30+ online help systems and our customers bookmarked the URLs that have index.htm. Is there a way I can force the index.htm in the URL for frameless? Thank you so much, Peter.

[Peter Grainge]

There are ways of altering a link in the output but the side-effect is they will not work!

You have to consider how many people have such bookmarks and whether you are willing to break them. If you don't want to do that you are stuck with your current output type but Frameless is where Adobe will be focussing future development.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

[davidk99046111]

we are switching from html5 to frameless and are facing the the same issue.  What we are doing is creating an index.htm page at the root of the project and using it as a catch-all page.  Since the index.htm in the html 5 output is the parent frame, all old html5 links should redirect to that catch-all page automatically (example: the link www.test.com /index.htm#t=hithere.htm will load the www.test.com/index.htm  page in frameless). 

it does not fix it 100% but it does prevent a 404 error when using new links.  

[Sleant]

Thank you, David. If you don't mind, I'm not sure how you did it and was wondering if you can expand on the details. Thank you again.

[davidk99046111]

Sure thing.  Once again, this will not redirect to specific topics.  Its a way to funnel all over links to one topic where you can add a note about your users updating their bookmarks and maybe give them direct links to important topics. 

I actually have my existing html5 and frameless as separate project files.  This allows me to test frameless without messing with my production html5.  I recommend making a copy of your html5 project to work in.  

So the HMTL5 output, by default, generates the index.htm file.  This serves as the parent frame and all topics are displayed within in it.  So when you have an html5 link, example: blah.com/index.htm#t=folder1%2Ffolder2%2Ftopic.htm, the index.htm is being called and the t= is the child topic loaded within it.

 The frameless output does not use the frames method, hence the name, so it does not generate an index.htm file by default.  That same topic's URL in the example above would read as  blah.com/folder1/folder2/topic.htm in frameless.  

So what you can do is create index.htm file at the root level of the Contents section (under the Author tab).  That will make the url for the page in blah.com/index.htm - the same link as frameless minus the child topic appended to the URL.  

Next, you would add the index topic to your web TOC.  After doing so, click on the index entry in the toc, and check the hide in output checkbox.  This will make it so that the index topic is included in the build but not listed in the TOC.

To test:

1. copy a url, starting at the index.htm portion, from your HTML 5 output and save it somewhere. Example: copy the bolded text: blah.com/index.htm#t=folder1%2Ffolder2%2Ftopic.htm
2. use the same TOC to generate the frameless build. 
3. Load the framesless site on your local.  URL should resemble something like this:
   
   Inital URL: file:///Users/ash.williams/Documents/RH/<whatever is set as the landing page>.htm
   
   
4. Paste the copied portion from step 1 into the url in place of the landing page as so: 
    
   Updated URL - file:///Users/ash.williams/Documents/RH/index.htm#t=folder1%2Ffolder2%2Ftopic.htm
   
5. The index page should load.   It will NOT load the actual topic.htm file.  But this prevents a 404 error and allows you to give the user an explanation of why they are getting that page.  

Please note when rolling to prod - if your server is case-sensitive, make sure to use the same format for the index file name (index and Index are seen as different files and will trigger a 404). 

[Sleant]

Wow, thank you so much for your time! I can't wait to try this. We are working on a few deadlines and won't be able to get to this until next couple of weeks. I'll be sure to report back. Thank you so much! 

[Peter Grainge]

@davidk99046111 I showed your solution to an Adobe contact and they came back with a couple of other suggestions. I have added a section to my page on Calling Help, with credit to you, to set out both your steps and Adobe's, along with a couple of pointers to things.

See Calling CSH Help - RoboHelp (grainge.org)

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.