Frameless output: external links in same frame, internal topic links in new window

[Christine301653386cjz]

RoboHelp 2022 (version 2022.2.22)

Experimenting with trying to use a frameless template, and trying to make links behave the same way that they do in our current projects (RH2017).  The projects are all on an intranet site. 

External links:

When using a frameless template, is there a way to make an external link (usually a topic in another project) appear in the center panel (make it replace the current topic with the external link, still viewing the same TOC and header from the original project)?  If the Same Frame option is selected for the link, in an HTML5 template (and RH2017), the link opens in the same frame and you can still see the toc (and header, etc).  If I select the same frame option in a frameless template, it opens the link in the whole window, so it appears that you are no longer in the same site.  (Which I suppose you're not, but we want it to remain in the frame, or the center panel in frameless, only).  Is that possible?  (Side note - the same frame and parent frame options seem to do the same thing in the frameless templates; is there a difference between them?)

Opening links (same project, not external) in a new window:

The 2nd issue is opening topic links (a different topic in the same project) in a new window.  In those situations, we want just the topic only (not the TOC) to open in a new window for the user to complete those steps, close it, and return back to the open topic that the link was in.  That's how it appears to work in HTML5 and how it works in our RH2017 projects.  But in a frameless template, it opens the new topic + the TOC in a new window.  Is there a way to avoid that?

Thanks!

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Take a look at Peter's site (grainge.org) about context-sensitive help calls - you might be needing to change how the links open to achieve that "topic-only" look.

[Christine301653386cjz]

I haven't really found it there, but I did find that I can disable the responsiveness of the HTML5 skins (issue from my other post)!   🙂

Even though we don't use CSH (at least what I understand CSH to be - accessing RoboHelp content from some kind of company application), the page you referenced does give some information about links which is helpful for my 2nd issue above.  It seems as though you have a choice for responsive skins, but not for frameless skins.  Which seems odd, since most of what I've read is encouraging us to use frameless; you'd think that one would also give you the option to open the topic only.

For the 1st issue.... I would have thought someone else would have encountered this too but maybe I don't have the right search terms.  The center panel is where the frameless topics appear, and we want an external url to appear in that center panel instead of the whole screen.  Maybe this is just impossible.  (Which would mean that here also, you have more options with the responsive skin; the URL options such as same, new, parent, work as expected in responsive).

[Amebr · Accepted solution]

Frameless doesn't use frames, so you can't insert external pages like you can in Responsive HTML. You could open it in a new window/tab, however, by selecting New Window from the Properties panel. Click inside the link you created, then the Properties panel should show 'a' in Type and you can select the "frame" as New Window. (I've assumed you're linking using the "Webpage" option which in RH2019 doesn't allow you to pick this when creating the link.)

I don't have RH2022 right now but this screenshot from RH2019 New UI should at least point you in the right direction.

If you have a friendly developer, maybe they can write some javascript that you can reference in the link, that replaces the correct content element with an iframe that contains the web page you want. 

[Christine301653386cjz]

We don't have a developer like that, so I think we'll stick with the responsive for now.   We have the links set up the way we want them now - some of them open in a new window, and some open in the same frame; we don't want to change them all to opening in a new window.  And we don't want the ones that do open in a new window to show the TOC.  The responsive has what we're looking for there, and we don't have to identify and change all of the needed links.  

But it's good to know for certain that that's simply how the frameless works, and the only way to get around it would be for someone to write code.

Thanks!

[Amebr]

If you wanted to put in a feature request for a future version, you can do so here:  https://tracker.adobe.com/

Post the item number in the discussion so people can easily vote if they want the same functionality.