RH X3 Changes HTM and ALI Files on Launch via HHP?

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
January 30, 2010
1 reply
475 views

It appears that launching RH (X3) from an HHP file (where there is no MPJ file) generates a new MPJ (good) but also messes with constituent other files in the project, namely HTM and ALI files. Can anyone corroborate and/or explain this?

HTML

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Captiv8r

Legend

Hi there

Sorry, but you will have to offer more for us to go on. Your statement is nebulous at best. How exactly are you stating that files are being "messed with". Are they becoming corrupt? Deleted? Please be a bit specific.

Keep in mind as well that the version of RoboHelp you are using (X3) is about eight years old, having been released in September of 2002.

Cheers... Rick

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GeauxSaintsAuthor

Participant

Sorry, Rick, I guess that was a bit vague. For the most

part it seems that HTM files are changed and the changes are non-destructive. For example here is a sample of a before and after launch incident:

Original (before):
   padding-bottom: 0px;"><a NAME=PutSourceFlagType
         HREF="PutSourceFlagType.htm">PutSourceFlagType</a></td>
Final (after):
   padding-bottom: 0px;"><a NAME="PutSourceFlagType" HREF="OaxPutSourceFlagType.htm">PutSourceFlagType</a></td>

Please note 2 things: 1) the original spans two lines of source and 2) the original has the (incorrect? optional?) syntax of NOT enclosing the NAME parameter in quotes. I suppose you could say that I am trying to convince my self that by regenerating the MPJ files from the HHP files that I am inadvertantly cleaning up some syntax issues/inconsistencies.

My concern is with the shear magnitude of files that are affected. I am "regenerating" some 40 RH projects this way, and the affected file count is about 2500, so I don't want to jump the gun, if you see what I mean.

Thanks for your time on this.

Captiv8r

Legend

Hello again

Okay, I'm nearly out the door for the evening but I've got more questions here.

First, would it be safe to assume that RoboHelp HTML X3 was not used to create these projects to begin with? You stated there was no MPJ file and that you were working from the HHP. So this suggests that RoboHelp either wasn't used or that perhaps it was, but you lost the source and decompiled to obtain and edit the source to update the project.

Second, is the content being again produced as a CHM once you finish? If so, have you tried recompiling? Assuming things compile just fine and the CHM behaves just fine after you edit, I'm wondering if you might be being a bit overly picky about what the source code looks like. For me, I really wouldn't care if there were 100 blank lines between lines as long as the end result worked for me without issue. But as you can tell, I'm a bit laid back on that. I know there are folks that like the HTML to be squeaky clean.

It may boil down to just having to accept that the tool produces something that works, but in a manner you disagree with on some level. I suppose I would consider the following parallel to work here.