Merged Projects in RH 2019

[Ioana_St]

Has anyone tried to work with merged projects in RH 2019? I am running into some weird issues and I can't get merged help to work regardless of the way I try it.

I tested the following.

• Creating merged project (a parent with one child) in RH 2019 Classic - OK. Opening index.htm from the parent displays the TOC of the parent and child modules and all their topics.
• Creating merged project in RH 2019 - NOK, the TOC only shows the current project. If you open index.htm from the parent, you only see the parent topics; if you open index.htm from the child, you only see the child topics. If you open the child project and click a topic different from the default one, the TOC of the parent is automatically loaded and replaces the TOC of the child. This happens when the URL changes from file:///C:/master_new_resp/mergedProjects/child/index.htm#t=First_Merged_Topic.htm to file:///C:/master_new_resp/index.htm#t=mergedProjects%2Fchild%2FSecond%20Merged%20Topic.htm. Other than that, you can navigate without errors among the displayed topics in either parent or child.
• Upgrading merged project from RH 2019 Classic to RH 2019 - NOK, same behavior as the new project above.
• Upgrading our existing source files from RH 2017 to RH 2019 - NOK, even weirder. If you open index.htm from the parent, you only see the parent topics and you can correctly navigate through the parent's topics. If you open index.htm from the child, you only see the child topics, but once you click any of the topics you get an error saying that the file does not exist. (All the topics do exist and can be opened standalone, but once you click the link that should show them in context, with TOC, the error appears again.) The problem seems to show up when the URL switches from file:///C:/responsive_new/mergedProjects/child_project/index.htm#t=Child_Topic1.htm to file:///C:/responsive_new/index.htm#t=mergedProjects%2Fchild_project%2FChildTopic2.htm.

All the above happen for both WebHelp and Responsive, using the Azure layout.

I guess that something went wrong in the upgrade, but I can't even understand how merged projects are supposed to work in 2019 to know what I should be aiming for...

[Peter Grainge]

In theory it shouldn't be any different. I'll try later.

The links tell me you are using a responsive layout. Have you tried webhelp as well?

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Ioana_St]

Yup, same behavior in WebHelp as well. If you want, I can email you my test projects, but I don't want to abuse your patience!

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

Best not to test that as Adobe are doing a pretty good job.

Being serious, I just created a 2019 setup and made sure the upgraded source projects followed the same structure as for 2017. That would not be the default upgrade path but that is to be expected and is easily fixed.

I then generated again ensuring the structure was squeaky clean. What I found was:

1. The redirect in the parent failed.
2. No TOC was shown.
3. A search designed to return all topics worked but only some of the results showed a topic.

Adobe then advised me that merging will be fixed in Update 1 in September.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Ioana_St]

Thank you very much for following up on this!

[sni66274]

Same problems over here, we noticed that the directory structure is changed when upgrading to 2019. Bagage files folders are gone and extra folder 'content' is created. All together also our merged project is corrupt. For the moment we will continue using 2019 classic version. Btw we are using the latest update to get sharepoint 365 going but that does not solve merged projects in our case.

[Amebr]

Just FYI here's the list of acknowledged changes in RH2019 Update 1. It doesn't look to include any fixes for merged setups. I *assume* Adobe would mention something like that, but knowing the vagaries of big business release notes, it's possible mention was missed. Can anyone confirm it's still a problem in Update 1?

Issues fixed in Adobe RoboHelp (2019 release)

[surbhiM]

Hi,

Merged project help works fine in RH 2019 Update 1.

As you mentioned: "Baggage files folders are gone and extra folder 'content' is created."  This is not specific to merged project.

When we are upgrading RH2017 project then all baggage files are moved to assets>docs folder. We properly update the paths in TOC as well. RH 2019 project structure is more organized and all the files are inside relevant folders e.g. condition, contents, glossary etc.

What are the issues you are facing while generating merged help?

Project TOC only has placeholder for merged project. In output merged project folder is created and inside that folder, child project has to be generated.

Let us know if you face any issue. Thank you for reaching out to us.

Regards,
Surbhi Maheshwari

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Personally, I've always been a fan of "Baggage". But I'm confused about the mention in this thread. To my knowledge, Baggage folders weren't anything really special. There was never any actual folder named Baggage. It was only conceptually presented that way inside the RoboHelp application. Is this what is being referred to here? The fact you don't see "Baggage" officially listed in the application?

Cheers... Rick