Previous/Next buttons

[clifcampb]

Hi I need a way to add previous/next button links into the 'content' pages using FlashHelp. They should behave in the exact same way as the previous/next buttons on the top of the table of contents.

Is there an easy way to pull this off?

I've tried carrying over javascript button code from WebHelp and tried hunting down the code for the prev/next buttons that FlashHelp uses but neither have been very successful.

Thanks.

[Captiv8r]

Hi clifcampb and welcome to our community

I stand to be corrected here, but I believe those buttons in FlashHelp exist as Flash objects that are placed where the images would normally be found in a traditional WebHelp output. Because of this, I think you would need to dissect the supporting Flash files and make changes there. This requires a couple of things.

1. Having the Adobe Flash application
2. Knowing which files to edit and how to make such edits

I believe a "FlashHelp System Development Kit" is shipped with RoboHelp and can be found among the files you see in the general location where RoboHelp has been installed. So assuming you have the prerequisite requirements of Flash and knowing how to use it, you might be successful in making the changes you need.

Cheers... Rick

[clifcampb]

We'd prefer these to be javascript controlled <img>'s

I've not come across this FlashHelp developer kit thing but I will do some looking around. I've tried to dig through the Flash files for those buttons and so far have come up empty handed.

[Guest]

When you say "easy," I assume you're talking about not hard-coding each link...

Try looking for skin_button_nav_previous.fla and skin_button_nav_next.fla.

I don't think that editing the Flash files in the skin is what you're looking for, however. If you can find your way around in the Flash application, you may be able to find the scripts the movies are using. But I don't think RoboHelp can automatically change the Flash files if you create/change a browse sequence, which means that the browse sequence code must be created by RoboHelp somewhere in other output files.

--Ben

[Guest]

Where did you find that JavaScript in WebHelp that you tried copying over?

[clifcampb]

@Benjaminson:
Above the table of contents, whskin_mbars.htm I believe?

FlashHelp and WebHelp use different libraries though.

I've tried looking at skin_button_nav_previous.fla and skin_button_nav_next.fla but I can't seem to find the actionscript or whatever that is DRIVING the buttons.

[clifcampb]

I believe there are several .xml files that define browse order and whatnot. I don't want to write an entire flash/javascript/java application to parse out the XML files for a few little buttons.

[Guest]

After some snooping around, here's what I've figured out so far:

I had discovered some time ago that when I generate my output, RoboHelp adds extra code to each HTML topic that isn't there in the source version. I looked in that code in a couple of HTML files and found a resemblance between the topics listed in the JavaScript function "addAvenueInfo" and the files that go with those files in the browse sequence order.

addAvenueInfo is in whtopic.js and includes parameters called "sPrev" and "sNext." I think this function has something to do with the browse sequence. I'll sniff a bit more, but I'm no JavaScript wizard.

--Ben

[clifcampb]

Problem is we are using FlashHelp and not web help - they don't have the same javascript libraries.

[Guest]

Right, I'm using FlashHelp also. There are some files in common between FlashHelp and WebHelp, but in my previous post I was referring to the FlashHelp version of whtopic.js.