A

Anonymous

Question

Reference source files outside project folder

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
July 16, 2009
2 replies
1962 views

My company wants to create one large help project. However we don't want all the HTML source files to be stored in that project. We want to store these files in another folder outside of the project. I'll try to simplify the situation.

I created a "RH Test Project 1" with a topic called "Welcome." When you look in Windows Explorer in the RH Test Project 1 folder, you'll see all of the files RH creates (.xpj, cpd, hhk, hhc, etc.). The "Welcome.htm" file is also in the RH Test Project 1 folder.

I actually want this "Welcome.htm" file to reside in a folder I created called "RH Test Project src." If I copy the Welcome.htm file to my new src folder, my project contains a broken link, as expected. I don't want to import the welcome.htm file because that creates a copy that goes right back into the RH Test Project 1 folder (essentially I would have a "Welcome.htm" file in RH Test Project 1 and RH Test Project src folders). All I want to do is to be able to reference the Welcome.htm file. I want to be able to edit and work with this file in RoboHelp but I don't want it to reside in my project folder. I want it to reside outside the folder.

Desired structure:

RH1 Project

-- RH1.xpj

RH2 Project

-- RH2.xpj

Source Folder

-- Subfolder 1

-- Welcome1.htm ( I don't want either welcome.htm topics to be in the RH1 Project or RH2 Project file structures)

--Subfolder 2

-- Welcome2.htm

HTML

This topic has been closed for replies.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

You can have links to external files but they will not appear in your TOC, index or search. RH is not designed to work that way and I think that is true of the other main HATs.

Define large and explain the reason for having the files outside the project. I am not seeing a reason in your post for wanting to do this. Maybe if that was understood, something else could be suggested.

What version of RH are you using?

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

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A

Anonymous

We are using RH 8.

We are also using ClearCase.

I'll try to explain the reasoning. Excuse me if I go about it in a roundabout way. We have a lot of repeatable and reusable content in our help files. We also have topics where the content can and should be cross-referenced for other applications. I don't want to create snippets or variables, I just want to reference the entire HTML topic in more than one application.

Before switching to RH 8, we had eight individual help projects for Payables, Assets, Purchasing, etc. We want one "src" file with the 8 subfolders. Each subfolder will then contain its associated HTML topics, like so:

src

Payables

accountgroups.htm

discountstaken.htm

etc.

Assets

disposingofassets.htm

preassetsummaryinquiry.htm

etc.

We will then have one large help project called "All_Apps" (where the .xpj and other system files will reside at the root). We understand that RH likes it's source information to all be contained within the project folder. So right now our workaround is to use symbolic links (bold font below) that mirror our "src" folder. As you can imagine, looking at such a structure in Windows Explorer is daunting.

all.apps

src (symbolic links)

payables

assets

common

payables

src (symbolic links)

payables

assets

common

src (original source content that the symbolic links are mirroring)

payables

accountgroups.htm

discountstaken.htm

assets

Basically RH is forcing us to store the .htm files w/in each of the projects. Our software is integrated and some topics are relevant in more than one of our applications. Is it possible to create a different structure that RH will recognize without using symbolic links to help us achieve the referencing or cross-referencing that we desire?

Thank you for your help. I called Adobe yesterday and logged an incident but after explaining this 8 times, they still only got "So you don't want to follow RH standards?" and then referred me to RH's online help.

A

Anonymous

What I am struggling with is you are saying that you want everything in one project but then go on to describe scenarios where you want to use some of those topics in the help for other products as if the help for those is in different projects.

Are you talking about a one author scenario? If you are, then you could have one project for everything and use conditional build tags and multiple layouts to get different sets of topics.

Bottom line is that for what you want, the topics have to be in one or more RH projects.

Another solution might be merged help where you could mix and match the child project outputs to create the help needed by any one customer. That means more than one project but might avoid the duplication you are seeking to get rid of.

If you truly only want one project, I don't understand your first question trying to find ways of having topics outside of it. It seems to me you do want more than one project but with the ability to use content across projects.

Please try again with the explanation.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Bottom line is we want to keep our source files (.htms) in a separate directory structure outside of where our RH project is. Can that be done?

A

Anonymous

Saving Rick, Peter, Leon, Pete, and everybody else some time: For heaven's sake, why do you want to do that?

(Actually, we really do want to know. This is an interesting requirement.)

I am 95% certain that you can't do this. RoboHelp works with source files under the assumption that source files live in the project folder. Even baggage files get copied into the project folder, and they aren't (strictly speaking) part of the topic structure.

But I am eager to hear what the honchos have to say about this one.

MergeThis

Inspiring

There've been a couple of recent postings dealing with the use of an intro splash screen. You might try searching "splash."

Good luck,

Leon

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