Preserving Hypertext Links in WebHelp

[gbarrelet]

Greetings!

I'm a using FM2017 and RH2017. I've search through the help and the forums, but I haven't found the answers I'm looking for. If there's a thread I've missed or a page I've skipped, please let me know.

I have a Book file with chapters in Frame that I'm converting to WebHelp. Everything is converting over nicely, except the hypertext links to external website (like the company website or the FTP site that contains the media required to complete the exercises). The text appears in the traditional blue link color, but there's no link there to click.

In Frame, I would highlight the text, insert a Hypertext marker (message URL http://www.vyv.ca). When I save this as PDF, the hypertext is live and works great. When I convert it to WebHelp, the text appears in blue, but there is no link.

What am I doing wrong? What am I missing?

[Peter Grainge]

I don't work with Fm but there is a setting Convert References to Hyperlinks. I doubt that is it but check. If not I will ping someone who might be able to help better.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[gbarrelet]

From what I can see the "Convert References to Hyperlinks" only applies to Word files being converted to WebHelp. There doesn't seem to be a Frame equivalent.

[Peter Grainge]

Yes but now Jeff is on the case, go with what he suggests.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

gbarrelet​ - I just did a quickie test importing a single FM12 doc into a RH11 project & the hyperlink came across fine - you may want to check the total "path+filename" length of the source FM content - I discovered that there's an invisible limit to how long that can be before RH gets all confused and loses the link. I first noticed in how xrefs were appearing in my resulting RH projects - even on the same page, some would work & some wouldn't. Real head-scratcher until I figured out that the total path plus the name of the FM file was too long for the xrefs that failed to resolve. Shortening up the entire FM project (by moving it further up a network folder path) fixed me up.

[gbarrelet]

So you're saying that the folder location of the Frame and RoboHelp files impacts how it converts a hyperlink from Frame to Webhelp? So if I set both closer to the Network root, this might resolve itself? How weird.

If this works, it's going to require a serious restructuring of all my paths.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Yes, if I had known that when I first started, I wouldn't have given such long filenames to my FM content - however, just shortening up the path worked fine. I just kept the same relative folder structure in place and moved it closer to the root - that was painless (in the FM world).

[gbarrelet]

Okay... I've made a discovery and fixed it, kind of. BTW, I shortened the Robohelp path to be as close to the root as possible.

When I looked at the page source of the converted webhelp (where the hyperlink was dead), I noticed there was a span marker called FM_urllink, but no hyperlink. So on a hunch, I removed the character style in Frame and kept the marker (Hypertext: message URL http://www.vyv.ca). I updated the Frame file, regenerated the page, and voila! The link works!

There's something about applying a character style on the text that has the Marker that hides the hyperlink in the converted HTML5 page. Now while the link still works in PDF, this means that links in PDF cannot be highlighted with a Character style. I supposed the work-around would be to use Conditional Text to mark one link as Print only and another as HTML only.

Any other insights?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

What about leaving the Character tag in FM & then telling the Conversion settings in RH to ignore it - I do that with a couple of my Character tags that I use to highlight xref, index marker & CSH marker positions (I make them all big-sized & bright colours), but I tell RH to skip them when bringing over the FM content.

[gbarrelet]

I tried that just now. I added some text to a page ("this is a test"), added a Go to URL marker with a URL, added a Character style (blue link), and then went into RH (Project Settings > Framemaker Document > Edit) and selected "Exclude from output" for the "blue link" character style.

When I updated the Frame files, the "this is a test" text disappeared completely.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Looks like you're back to the "print" and "online" styling/no-styling solution then.

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

Seeing that "Exclude from output" bit makes me think perhaps a Conditional Build Tag is being created.

Cheers... Rick

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hi Rick - it kind of acts that way, but it actually filters the content right out - you don't see it in the RH project at all.

[veni79]

Hi,
I work in TCS 2015. My setup is linked FM books to RH, using RH to generate pdf, Webhelp or CHM help. I have custom css and isf files. I had the same problem since TCS 4 and my solution has been as follows:
I conditionalize the links for print and online (webhelp and chm).I do use character style to set apart the hyperlinks in blue
In the Hypertext pod, use the following settings:
Command: Go to URL
Syntax message - the external web address followed by " target="_blank
for example, if I want the following web link to open in a new window www.abcexample.com, in the syntax  message, I would type
http://www.abcexample.com" target="_blank
Note there is one space before the word “target” and I type the entire address, i.e., http://

Other points:
- It seems that the hypertext marker needs to be at the end of the url in FM (since upgrade to FM 2015)
- This solution has worked for me since TCS 4 for Webhelp. It stopped working for chm when I upgraded to FM 2015. Adobe Tech support looked and my files and confirmed it is not working and this syntax not supported; so, currently in my linked books I don’t have solution for chm, i.e. links to external websites do not open in new window with my current setup, plus, I get a strange “script not working” error  messages that other people have reported; I don’t want to do post-processing in RH because that defeats the purpose of single-sourcing and is possible only if I have a small number of eternal  links.