MapIDs only go to the top of the topic, not down to the heading

[TaskWriter]

2022.4.179

I'm using bookmarks in Topics and then using them to create Map IDs. I thought that the Map IDs for a bookmark, when called, would go directly to that bookmark wherever it is in the topic.

The dev folks are saying that maybe there's something to "turn ON" in RH to make the IDs go straight to where I placed the bookmark. 

Again, thanks for any and all insights!

[Peter Grainge]

Nothing to turn on. As long as the call is correct, it should go to the bookmark. 

If you continue to have the issue I suggest you need to go to Adobe Support. See https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp for your Adobe Support options. The email link tcssup@adobe.com is recommended as it reaches a team dedicated to Technical Communication Suite products including RoboHelp.

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

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

How are they doing the CSH call to the help?

[TaskWriter]

He's doing it manually, inserting the string below as a link, following the instructions for Frameless Skins, (Thanks Peter):

Using Map IDs

The call needs to be in the format

path/index.htm?rhmapno=123

If you are using context sensitive help and want the topic to open with the TOC, add "&rhmapfs=false" to the call. For example:-

path/index.htm?rhmapno=123&rhmapfs=false

He takes the Map ID and inserts it like this:

path/index.htm?rhmapno=123&rhmapfs=false

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

As a test, see if  path/index.htm?rhmapno=123 works without the TOC switch. If it acts the same, then have a look inside RH to see how 123 is defined. If you've got it pointing to the bookmark only in there, then it's time to ping the RH folks like Peter suggested. 

[TaskWriter]

Doesn't work. TOC is gone, as expected per using Peter's instructions.

[TaskWriter]

Do bookmark IDs have to be lower case?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Not that I'm aware of.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

No, I meant - does the CSH reference still jump to the head of the topic or to the bookmark place?

[TaskWriter]

What's a CSH reference?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Context-sensitive help - it's when an application or webpage makes a call to the RH project's output that you've created and placed somewhere to be called to launch at a specific spot.

[TaskWriter]

Just had a colleague tell me that bookmarks, ala anchors, have to be lower case ... hmmm that could be why it wasn't working. I have numbers in my bookmarks, just seeing if that's allowed as well.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Shouldn't make any difference because externally all you're exposing is the MapID # - then the JavaScript uses that and the .h and .ali files to do the internal mapping to the URL of the topic/bookmark.  

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Just a thought - is your help on a Unix box? That type of webserver distinguishes upper and lower cases to be different. That's why there's that flag in the output preset for forcing all filenames to be lowercase. That may be your issue if you've got bookmark text in mixed case.

[Peter Grainge]

I think it's more likely they have to be the same everywhere. On Unix based systems a path containing AB is not the same as ab. Consistency is the key, not the actual case. 

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

[Peter Grainge]

Put another way, what @Jeff_Coatsworth and I are getting at it that if you have set the bookmarks in one case and the developer is calling them in a different case, that could be the issue on the server if it is Unix based.

________________________________________________________

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

[Amebr]

I don't think the bookmarks have to be lowercase. I think the only requirements are that they can't start with a digit and can't contain spaces.

[TaskWriter]

Since there is a bug with creating MapIDs from dragging the bookmarks over, I have stuck to naming Bookmarks using only lowercase letters interspersed with numbers. Leading numerals in the MAP ID column are working for us. But what's a real pain is having to retype the MAP ID when I drag the Bookmark into the MapID field to create the Map ID.

[Amebr]

Yes the requirements for map ids would be different. I was only talking about the requirements for bookmarks.

You do sound like you have a very unique workflow - I've never hard of anyone using the bookmarks to create map ids before. Linking a map id to a bookmark, yes. Creating the map id from the bookmark, no. 🙂 

[TaskWriter]

Thanks for the response! But what's the difference? I want to have MapIDs drill down to headings in my topic page. I create a bookmark and it is displayed in the Map ID output page, under the Topic,  where I create the Map File. I simply drag the Bookmark over to the right column, the Map ID column. Is there another way to get a MapID to go to a specific position within a Topic without creating a Bookmark that is displayed in the Map ID output screen? Thanks a gain for your help!

[Peter Grainge]

It looks as if a reply I posted has gone AWOL.

It shouldn't make any difference but rather than dragging, try this. Click the plus sign to open this dialog and then select the bookmark.

It will not show in the dialog but it will be in the map file. Open it in a text editor to check.

Then as long as everyone uses the same case it should work.

________________________________________________________

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

[TaskWriter]

Thanks Peter, never knew that option existed! I tried it and still have to Edit the MAP ID to the name of the bookmark, as it comes over as the name found in the TOPIC column. I think this is the bug your mentioned earlier in this thread.

[Amebr]

I don't think that's a bug. a map id is not the same as a bookmark.

It originally (30+ years ago) was usually provided by the develper, and was a human-readable text paired with the map number.. The developer used to provide it because the number was created by the developer, and they provided the human-readable text so the author knew which screen/field/etc the number was associated with.

Later, the author sometimes created both the map number and map id and provided that list to the developer so they could make the apprpriate changes to the program.

I do rather like your idea of using a bookmark as a map id, but that would be a feature request, in my opinion. 

There might be a problem if you don't ensure your bookmarks are unique across your entire project though. But I haven't used CSH for such a long time I'm not sure on that point. At  best, someone might get confused if two map numbers have the same map id (which feature does the map number relate to?); or, your csh stops working or returns the wrong result for those calls.