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I'm compiling a master .chm for our company which has all the .chm helps from our partner companies. I always have had books as the icons in my .chm's. Each individual .chm uses books as well. When I add this one particular .chm to the TOC however, it changes all my other icons in the TOC to folders, while it remains as a book icon.
How can I correct this?
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Hi there
This one needs some images. Can you share with us the following:
1. What the master CHM looks like at run time where things don't seem to be working.
2. The TOC editor of the MASTER CHM inside RoboHelp where the errant TOC reference has been added.
3. The problem CHM at run time
4. The TOC editor of the PROBLEM CHM inside RoboHelp.
Cheers... Rick
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​
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So, in those images, you can see I have a TOC with books, then I add the last merge project, then it is the only one with a book icon, and the rest turn to folders. What's weird, is that each one of those projects open individually as books. I'm not sure why that one would flip everything else to a folder.
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So if you remove the reference from the master and recompile the master, are things back to normal?
What about changing the order?
What about creating a small test CHM and adding that? Same thing?
Sorry, seems we are chasing gremlins here.
Cheers... Rick
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Yes, if I remove it, everything is back to normal.
Changing the order doesn't matter.
Any other of my .chm's don't cause an issue.
Any of my other .chm's added WITH the problem project show up as a folder as well, until the problem project is removed.
Just a little additional info, you'll see one of the items in the TOC is called "ModuleWorks", the problem project is called "Welcome to NestLib". These projects are ones that are from our partner companies. I know the ModuleWorks one was created in Robohelp, but I'm not sure about the problem project "Welcome to NestLib". This MAY have been created with another software.
I found this thread: http://microsoft.public.helpauthoring.narkive.com/5goU7Llj/changing-folder-icon-to-book-item-in-toc​ which seems to be the same issue, and the guy did solve his issue, but I can't seem to follow what exactly he did to correct it.
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LOL, the Rick in that thread is me. Ahhh good times. Good times.
Hmmm, I don't suppose you might consider decompiling the problem CHM to create a RoboHelp project, then looking at/modifying the TOC and recompiling it using RoboHelp to see if it corrects the behavior.
That's the approach I might consider if I were in your shoes and if it were important to me that the CHM be part of that final deliverable.
What I suspect may be happening is that this CHM, while it does show as books and not folders, could be deceiving. In a CHM file, you have the wonderful option to assign icons individually to elements in the TOC. So I'm wondering if whomever created it accidentally flagged the TOC with the "Folders instead of books" control, then they (or a subsequent author) wondered why it looked that way and was unaware of the flag, so they just individually overrode each node so it was a book. That's the only plausible explanation that makes sense to me.
Just for grins, you might try compiling the Master CHM again and use the Binary TOC option to see if it makes any difference. I'm not sure it will, but it certainly won't hurt to give it a try.
Cheers... Rick
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Braaaaah!!!! I know I've said this before, but, you are the MAN! ... f'real, f'real! lol
Yeah, when I saw the name "Rick" I thought that might be you, but I'm used to "Cheers" not "Sincerely", so it threw me off hahaha.
Yeah, you're 1,2,3 Binary TOC worked like a charm!
Thanks again!
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I spoke too soon. It looks good, but the books don't open haha.
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Do they require perhaps a double-click?
I vaguely recall that there were some differences or possibly unwanted side effects of enabling the Binary option. Maybe that's one of them.
Wish my memory was better...
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Yeah, double click isn't working either. How would I go about trying to decompile the .chm to open it as a project? Like I said, I don't have a project file for the bad .chm.
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I would investigate the link below:
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That link takes me to: http://grainge.org/pages/authoring/reverse_engineering/reverse_engineering.htm​
In there, the free option points me to: http://www.robowizard.com/RoboWizard/NewProject.htm#MonthlyScry/062004.htm
which is your "June 2004 - Impure Sorcery" topic. this describes how to salvage topics by importing the webhelp html's and doing some cleanup. (In my case I don't have that, I only have the .chm)
Since it references "Reverse Engineering" in your link, I did a search for that in your RoboWizard help system. It DID locate a topic which is a link to http://www.robowizard.com/RoboWizard/Redirects/Recovery_Script.htm​ but when I click on it, I get the "Oops, page not found." error.
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Read the the topic on my site again and look at the headings. You have
looked at the one for WebHelp. Look further down for the one on CHMs.
Peter Grainge
www.grainge.org
@petergrainge
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Ok, thanks Peter! That allowed me to take my .chm and create a new Robohelp project from it. Here's the weird part: When I generate a .chm from any of my other projects, I can go to the Additional Options group, and click Edit next to Advanced Settings to get to the HTML Help - Advanced Settings dialog. This allows me to go to the TOC Styles tab, and select the "Folders Instead of Books" option.... Now, when I output the .chm, my TOC will show folders instead of book icons.
The problem .chm (and now robohelp project) does NOT do that. I can select that "Folders Instead of Books" option, or keep it cleared, and, either way, I'll still have books...... Would that help to shed any light on this issue?
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In older versions of RoboHelp, when you created a new window it was based on whatever was set as the default output. To get the required window for a CHM you had to set that as the default. Now when you create a new window, you have to select the window type.
Create new windows and select Microsoft HTML Help. Then select the new window and you should see the options you are missing.
See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.
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I'm out till Moday, but I'll see what I can do when I get back. Have a good weekend!