Help Display Not Correct When Called from Application

Report · Jan 12, 2021

Hello, I recently began using RH 2020. I've just generated a help system using it. When I open up the generated output from a network drive, everything looks exactly as I expect.

However, when the generated output is connected to our application and opened from that application, there are numerous problems. For example, the panels for Search and Contents do not display. Also, images randomly will not display in topics. Instead, the filename of the image is displayed.

Has anyone ever encountered problems like these? It doesn't seem like a RH problem really, as the output RH generates looks fine. It's like the application has a problem displaying that output. (BTW, the application was initially developed about 7 years ago. So we have an older application trying to display output generated by the latest RH.)

Thanks for any comments!

Report · Jan 12, 2021

What form is the output? And how is it called from the application? Is it just general launching that's messed up or calls to specific CSH topics?

Report · Jan 12, 2021

<<What form is the output?>>
In RH 2020, the selected Output Preset is WebHelp (Responsive HTML5).

<<And how is it called from the application? Is it just general launching that's messed up or calls to specific CSH topics?>>

It is called two ways:
1. From the Help menu in the application... This points to Help's index.htm file and opens the Welcome page (general launching).

2. From a page-level help button.... This opens a specific HTML file for a specific page.

Both the general launching and calls to specific topics display the same problems.

My first thought was this: We have an old application trying to open and display output from the latest version of RH.... And the application doesn't know how to display some of that output... Perhaps some aspects of that output didn't even exist 7 years ago?

Report · Jan 12, 2021

If it's WebHelp in 2020, it's non-responsive HTML5 files (basically, they took the responsive HTML5 & turned off the responsiveness). Does it happen with different browsers? Have you installed the latest RH2020 patch (see https://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html) and generated with it?

Report · Jan 13, 2021

<<If it's WebHelp in 2020, it's non-responsive HTML5 files (basically, they took the responsive HTML5 & turned off the responsiveness).>>
Right, that's what it is.

<<Does it happen with different browsers?>>
Yes. Problems in both Chrome and Edge.

<<Have you installed the latest RH2020 patch>>
I installed 2020.03 in late Dec.

When I open my generated Help directly from a network drive, the skin displays properly around the content. (This includes the panels for Contents and Search, as well as a bar running across the top of every page with a Home button.)

When I open Help from the (rather old) application, the topic content displays, but the skin components don't.... No panels for Contents and Search, no bar at top with Home button.

In other words, when Help is opened from the application... certain Help components either aren't displayed at all, or aren't displayed correctly.

Report · Jan 12, 2021

Does the context call open the help in a regular browser, or in a special window? If it's a special window, your developers may need to make a change as it that window may be a version of Internet Explorer that is set to IE7 mode, which will not display correctly. I don't know what they need to do, but they should be able to change it to IE11.