RH 2020 - Edit css outside RH

[louellen_20210224]

I apologize if this has already been discussed here, but I can't find any similar posts.

If I edit a .css file outside of RH, will it still be editable in RH in the future? I thought I had read somewhere, or possibly heard in a training session, that if you edit a .css with some other tool, you can't edit it in RH going forward. Is that true, or did I misunderstand something?

We are just beginning the process of upgrading to RH 2020 and will be moving from the Indigo layout to Frameless, so I anticipate we will need to make some changes to our current stylesheet. I know almost nothing about .css but we do have a front end developer on our team. She doesn't have RH (and it doesn't seem worthwhile to get it for her just to edit the .css), so I'm just trying to understand what our process should be. 

[Jeff_Coatsworth · Accepted solution]

CSS files are just text files, so no restrictions on what you use to edit them (as long as they remain as text & not binary files like Word or Framemaker, etc.)

[louellen_20210224]

Thanks Jeff, that's good to know! I wonder what it was I thought I heard 🙂

[Peter Grainge]

Sorry to contradict Jeff but the way the styles get written now is much more complex than ever before. Take look at your CSS and the one in the About RoboHelp sample project and you will see what I mean. Go ahead if you can write or edit that level of coding. ☺️

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See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[louellen_20210224]

Well, as I said, I know next to nothing about .css, but our front-end developer does, so let's hope she's up for a challenge.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I just had a look @Peter Grainge - they all appear to be regular text CSS files to me in that sample project - being complicated is a separate issue from what tool you require to edit them in. Any old Notepad works just fine.

[Stefan-Gentz]

Let's be a little bit careful about "any old Notepad". It should not be too old and at least be able to deal with Unicode encoded text files (especially if you want to keep it in UTF-8 with BOM) 😉

[Peter Grainge]

I didn't mean you can't use a text editor, rather that the coding can get very complex, particularly for lists, so it is not a way of editing that I would recommend or that should be undertaken lightly.

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See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Amebr]

The one caveat to editing outside RH is that some of the perfectly valid CSS constructs can't be viewed or modified properly in the RH editor.

For example, a[href^='http']:after shows up as a in the editor.

And div.sidebar p shows up as p in the editor.

On the plus side, for these examples you can edit the properties in the editor, it's just not easy to determine which p or a you need to edit. 🙂

[Peter Grainge]

You pays your money and you takes your choice. 🙂

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[louellen_20210224]

So this is not for the faint of heart. Noted. 🙂

I don't anticipate that we would be making extensive changes to the .css. I can do limited editing on my own, but when I look at the plethora of options that are now available within RH, I am a bit intimidated. 

My question was really just to try to understand the process of how we would work together on this with our front-end developer, since she does not know RH and the learning curve doesn't seem worth it, given all her other responsibilities.

Thanks to all for chiming in!

[Peter Grainge]

Simple suggestion, before editing the CSS either way, create a duplicate of it. Just right click the CSS to do so.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information