Responsive HTML Header and Sidebar not appearing when opening to new tab

Report · Jan 13, 2023

Hi all, if someone has an answer to this I would be eternally grateful.

I am building a framless project in RH2020, and after generating and publishing, I try and open a topic from the TOC in a new tab in Chrome, but when I do only the topic information appears, not the left sidebar TOC, or the header.

Then if I click reload, the page reloads as normal. This is not an optimal user experience.

I think it is some setting I have missed, because I know it can work, as demonstrated on Peter's website.

Please help!

Report · Jan 17, 2023

That's weird, your post wasn't on this forum earlier this week (and a bunch of others seem to have appeared as if by magic as well). So apologies for the delay but the forums seem to be a bit weird at the moment.

First, let's make sure you're on the latest version. Check the Help menu for your full version number. I think for RH2020 it should be update 8 (2020.8.xxx). If you are on the initial release, you'll need to manually download an update, because there's a bug in that version which prevents Help > Updates from working. https://helpx.adobe.com/robohelp/kb/robohelp-downloads.html

Report · Jan 18, 2023

Hi Amebr! Thank you for taking notice of my request, this is vexing me in ways I can't articulate, which is saying a lot given the idiosyncracies of RH2020. I am currently on version 2020.8.34, which I think is the lastest version.

What gets me the most is Peter's site does it fine, but mine does not, so I know there is a setting or something I am missing. If I look into the code, I can see that it loads different, but I cannot determine why it just doesn't load automatically.

Any help or insight is greatly apprecitated.

Thank you so much!

Report · Jan 18, 2023

See attached screenshot of code example. I changed the skin to test if that had anything to do with it, and no, same result.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

Is this when you open the help locally or when it is on a server?

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Report · Jan 18, 2023

Hi Peter! Thank you for looking into this.

It happens after publishing to our Robohelp server.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

Ah! So it's all good locally. That points to it being the server configuration.

Do you mean RoboHelp Server is in the Adobe product or a server to which you upload the output?

Is it a web server or a file server?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

We use the Adobe RoboHelp Server

Report · Jan 18, 2023

If you publish to the same physical server but not to the Adobe RoboHelp Server product, does the problem occur then?

I am trying to narrow it down to the server itself or the Adobe RoboHelp Server product. If it is the latter, I can reach out to someone who may be able to help.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

I am sorry, I am showing my ignorance here, but we only publish to the Robohelp Server, I have never pubished to anything else. We have a rather... closed system due to the nature of our work, so that is our only option. Sorry, I don't mean to be cryptic but it's only what I know here.

Thank you for your help, it means a lot.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

A web server is a physical piece of hardware. Adobe RoboHelp Server is a piece of software that gets installed on a web server and you would have access to a dashboard on your PC.

How do you get the output on to the server?

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My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

I just use the publication feature directly in RH2020, that goes to our webserver which I can the access through the RH Webserver site. Is that what you mean? Everything is handled directly though the RH interface.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

That looks like you are not using the product, merely a webserver that hosts your help. To be sure, go to your publish profiles in the Edit menu and tell me what you see in the Server Type field.

Assuming that it is something other than RoboHelp Server, it sounds like it is a server configuration issue. Perhaps javascript is not enabled?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 18, 2023

@Peter Grainge I'm not sure if it's relevant, but the second screenshot showing the yellow theme (Studio skin?) looks like it's open in CSH mode. I don't remember there being any settings to control that in RH itself - you can only invoke that with the "index.htm?rhmapno=xx" call right? And the direct URL method won't open in CSH mode in Frameless, if I remember correctly?

Just thought I'd ask the question in case it rings some bells for you, as I haven't really worked with CSH in New UI at all.

Report · Jan 19, 2023

@Amebr Yes that can only be done in the call but I didn't think it was that as the left panel for the TOC and so on would not be there. There is a way of calling the CSH with the left panel but that would also bring up the mini-toc. To me it looks like the loading has stalled.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 19, 2023

You summed it up exactly, for whatever reason loading gets stalled. The same thing occurs on Orange and Oceanic skins as well. There is no setting that I can change that makes it load correctly. My network admin thought it might something in Window Settings under the Output tab, I thought it might be a setting in the Skin itself, but I can't find it.

I have no idea why this would occur, but it is I think sort of like how in RH2017 that if you opened a new tab in Responsive, the new page would open with the "Click here to see in full context" option at the top.

I am absolutely baffled. Thank you all for your help

Report · Jan 19, 2023

I am surprised your network admin is suggesting it is the output as it works correctly locally. That establishes it is the server environment where the issue occurs.

I think sort of like how in RH2017 that if you opened a new tab in Responsive, the new page would open with the "Click here to see in full context" option at the top.

I disagree. That did not and was not meant to show the TOC panel until you clicked the link. In your first image you have a TOC and its panel is showing on the server but minus the content.

Has your network admin checked javascript is enabled? If they have, then I suggest you go to Adobe Support. See https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp for your Adobe Support options. The email link tcssup@adobe.com is recommended as it reaches a team dedicated to Technical Communication Suite products including RoboHelp.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 23, 2023

Hi all, a few updates:

I asked a colleague who publishes a similar project as mine but manages to have her tabs open with the toc and header if I could review hers and see if the settings are the same.

I published her project to my server as is, only changing the output folder to one on my machine, and the problem still happened for me.

I sent her a test project I created, and she published it on her section of the server, and she countered the same problem I did.

I talked to my network admin and he matched all my server settings to hers, and the problem still happened. We even had a call with an Adobe rep last week and he couldn't replicate the problem. We are absolutely tapped out on what it could be.

Thank you all for your help to this point, it is just the most vexing issue.

Report · Jan 24, 2023

I can't see anywhere in this thread that you have tried a different skin. Have you?

Also have you tried different browsers?

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 26, 2023

Hi Peter,

Yes, we have used the Studio, Orange, and Oceanic. Also tried in Edge and Chrome.

I think I may have narrowed down the problem, it is something JS related, as you mentioned earlier, and our network admin says we all have the same configuration within our partitions of the server.

In further reasearch, when this part of the url "?type=frameless&area=NEWTABTEST&project=ADOBECALLTEST" it works, and if I copy and paste it into the URL and refresh, it works. If not there, it does not.

In looking at the code, it all starts with this derivation:

vs

Is this a setting in RH2020 or a serverside issue that keeps it from loading the page?

Thank you all!

Report · Jan 26, 2023

If you look at RoboHelp Tour Introduction (grainge.org) and go to View Source you will not find

js-focus-visible" data-js-focus-visible

in the topics. I don't know how it is getting into your projects.

I have never seen urls with

NEWTABTEST&project=ADOBECALLTEST in them.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 26, 2023

"Area" and "Project" are terms used in the Robohelp Server product user manual. So perhaps you are using Robohelp Server.

Here's a link to the manual in case it helps: https://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp-server/using/index.html#t=book%2FWS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11c0...

If it's not Robohelp Server, then it has to be some custom javascript or some other customisation outside Robohelp.

Report · Feb 01, 2023

Hi all,

Still no idea why it does/doesn't work, but I was looking into the code after clicking "Inspect" in Chrome revealed the attached. Something somewhere is causing the failure in that js, but that is written by RH automatically and I don't know why it isn't written correctly.