Glossary

[timmo08]

Just tried to remove a glossary item and Robohelp seems to have gone nuts ! Keeps searching to and fro on the same few pages - I can't cancel the process or pause to even see what it is doing. The word being removed exists many times in the doc, with perhaps several hundred uses as a glossary item over the 500+ pages. Even so I would expect this to be a reasonably uncomplicated process and finish in a few minutes. This is the latest of a series of problems encountered since we upgraded to robohelp 6 - is this product fit for use or what ?

[Peter Grainge]

500 pages is a serious size for a Word document, particularly inside RoboHelp. I don't know how many topics that covers but I believe Adobe advise something like 100 topics per document, tops 200.

Try one of the supplied sample projects to see how that handles the same function.

<quote>is this product fit for use or what ?</quote> Based on one issue and without waiting for a response!

[timmo08]

Interesting because I've never seen that advice before and the old version of Robohelp seemed to handle this doc without incident. That said, splitting the doc is planned but I would expect it to handle more than 100 topics, which isn't that much for a help file. If there's a max size in terms of pages/topics shouldn't the software warn if it is exceeded or getting close ?
Regrettably it's not the only issue we've come across. The process is, by the way, still running - nearly 80 minutes on.

[Peter Grainge]

It's a guideline and I have seen projects that exceed the figures suggested. My point was more that if you are having problems that could, rather than is, be the problem.

It's also dependent on how big each topic is, the PC running it and so on so the warning for one person might be wrong for the next.

Also I am talking about 100/200 topics per document rather than in the help file overall.

Was it still unacceptable with the supplied project? That would give a clue as to whether your problem is related to the size of the document or if that is a red herring.

[timmo08]

Well it ran through eventually - I estimate it took about 3 hours (other things to do on a Sunday afternoon, however wet !). I experimented with deleting a glossary item from one of the supplied projects - it went through quickly but then it's a much smaller project.
The PC (or rather laptop) is a pretty good spec with plenty of disc space, memory etc (Dell Inspiron 6400, about 6 months old)
We need smaller docs anyway, so just starting to split up a copy now and I'll experiment later on this afternoon to see if this has improved things.

[Peter Grainge]

I'll be interested to learn the results.

[timmo08]

Took about 45 mins to remove another less common glossary and still appeared to be doing far more searching that necessary. Seems to search repeatedly through the doc and also for each occurrence of the word, rather than just for glossary entries (which is applied only on the first occurrence in each topic). I'd have imagined it should look for only for glossary values ?
Several other bizarre things happening: a browse list created with an odd name by the system during a compilation; hitherto good links being broken and all with the word 'place' inserted somewhere in the relevant text ?