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EileenPalsson
EileenPalsson
Inspiring
May 21, 2010
Question

Related Topics link (created with JavaScript:RelatedTopics.Click) broken when topics opened from TOC

  • May 21, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 1513 views

In a separate thread, Praful Jain provided us with a useful script that fixed broken "related topics/see also" links: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2513306

I find it works pretty well. The only problem is, if you access the help topics via the Contents tab (TOC) of a CHM file [I haven't tested any other output yet], then such "related topics" or "see also" links don't work. If you access the topic some other way (for example from the Search tab, Index tab, or via a link from another topic), those same links DO work.

Since I was checking via the TOC, and finding that none of the "related topics/see also" links I found that way were working, at first I thought that RH8.0.2 had somehow "lost" all of the A-keywords in the project, and I reported this in the forum: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2825485

While it's still a problem that the A-keywords (1) are not listed in the See Also pod and (2) are not listed on the See Also tab of the respective Topic Properties, I now find that the links created using the A-keywords (which somehow still exist and are still visible on the See Also tab of the See Also Properties dialog) ARE working.

So, the point: Can we get an updated script that will ensure that those "related topics/see also" links will also work when the topics are accessed from the TOC?

Regards,

Eileen

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Praful_Jain
Praful_Jain
Participating Frequently
May 24, 2010

Hi Eileen,

Can you please provide a sample project where clicking from TOC, the related topic click does not work. This will help me in finding the main problem.

Thanks

Praful

EileenPalsson
EileenPalssonAuthor
Inspiring
May 24, 2010

Hi Praful,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get back to you on that tomorrow. Here's what happened: I made a copy of one of my projects where this problem occurs, and deleted 99% of the topics, just keeping those that are involved in the problem.

Then I created a new TOC.

Then I ran your original script on that small project (including compilation) -- and now the links work.

So I went back to the original project and ran your script again, thinking maybe I just made a big mistake. No luck.

So tomorrow I will look for differences in the supposedly identical topics in the two projects that might explain why the small project is working but the large one is not. I'll let you know what I find. (However, feel free to comment if you have an idea what I should look for.)

Thanks and regards,

Eileen

EileenPalsson
EileenPalssonAuthor
Inspiring
May 31, 2010

Hi Eileen,

Can you just zip the project which has this issue, and upload that to some sharing site like https://acrobat.com/ you can send the shared project URL @

praful@adobe.com 

Thanks

Praful


Hello again,

I did ZIP up my project and upload it for Praful. There was no result from that -- which perhaps is understandable, because after many more hours of testing, head scratching, and gnashing of teeth, I finally discovered the "cause" of the non-working "Related Topics" links, namely listing a topic multiple times in the same TOC.

The first time a topic is listed in the TOC: If you access the topic that way and click the "Related Topics" link, it works.

Subsequent listings for that topic: If you access the topic from those other locations, and click the "Related Topics" link, it does not work.

I'm not the only one listing topics multiple times in the same TOC. In the particular case, the help describes an API. Each API object has its own folder, where the user can find properties, methods, and examples. Since some properties are used for multiple objects, those properties are listed in the folder describing each object to which they apply. It's in those topics that the "Related Topics" links are broken.

Now that I've found the prerequisites of reproducing this problem (which isn't to say I understand what's going on behind the scenes when the CHM is running), the questions are:

Is this a problem caused by RoboHelp, or by how the CHM file is run by Windows? (I am still running Windows XP, but my colleague who has Windows 7 confirms that it is still a problem when he runs the CHM file on his PC.)

Is there a workaround, or we going to have to restructure our TOCs to compensate for this ridiculous malfunction?

Thanks!

Eileen

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