Known Participant

Question

Robohelp - links to web UI broken (extra text in URL)

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 25, 2021
8 replies
639 views

I've run into an issuewhere a tech support person noted that all of the contextual help links from a web UI to our online help were broken. I noticed that the web UI is trying to call up a URL with extra text. I'm assuming this extra text made it's way into the original output I created, but somehow, in subsequent releases, this text went away. My online help is currently formatted as such (I've removed the beginning of the URL)

.com/#t=Overview.htm

But the web UI is trying to call this:

.com/topic.htm#t=Overview.htm

Other than re-code the links (a huge undertaking that SW engineering will not be pleased about,) is there a way to re-introduce the topic.htm text into the URL/output?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

@Amebr - that's really bizarre! Usually you can call the index page anything you want - I wonder if topic.htm is some sort of reserved word being used in those skins/layouts.

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

I've got in touch with support - I'll post here if it's remedied.

A

Amebr

Community Expert

Huh. It looks like for Azure Blue (and probably Charcoal Grey) if the start page is topic.htm, the help initially opens in context sensitive help mode and you have to click "Click here to see this page in full context" and then the help displays correctly with "topic.htm#t=whatever/path/topic_name.htm" in the address bar.

When the start page is index.htm or anything else (I tried a couple of random words), the help opens as normal.

You might be best to contact support for this one. See here for contact options:

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/enterprise-support.other.html#robohelp

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Ok - index.htm - so your application should be calling your help using that index.htm#t=path/topic_name.htm syntax. You can either get your devs to change their calls OR you change your file name in that field to topic.htm and it should work fine when you regenerate and give them the new help files.

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

I tried changing it to topic.htm and it completely broke the file (weird flashing and a 1/2 rendered website when I open the topic.htm file). I've definitely narrowed this down to it being a Layout issue, Indigo layout creates a topic.htm file upon output and Azure_blue does not. My developers cannot change the filepath as this is also tied to firmware which may not get updated in the field, therefore any naming changes will break the links.

Appreciate the help - not sure there's a way to remedy this for this particular project but it's a lesson learned and something to watch out for in the future.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

What's the name of the file that you're using at the end of that path field?

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

It's right there at the end of the Output Folder and Start Page field path - have a look & see what file name you're using. By default, it uses index.htm, but you can call it whatever you want.

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

That doesn't seem to be the issue - it appears to be something to do with the actual Layout. I had oriignally published with a customized version of Indigo but have since published most of my webhelp pages on a customized version of Azure_Blue. The Indigo layout creates a topic.htm file upon output but the Azure_Blue layout doesn't. It appears to have something to do with the top-level folders that are created as part of the Indigo layout (Azure-blue doesn't create these, or if it does I managed to disable it somehow on subsequent help releases...)

Not ideally I can work around breaking links with the SW by just re-publishing in Indigo. The topic.htm#t is intact by doing so.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Make sure your RH2019 is updated. Have a look at the Responsive HTML5 preset you use to generate output - the index page is usually specified in the first screen.

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

There's an option on the 2nd page (Content) to set the index to a TOC, but again, I do not create an Index as part of my outputs (set to 'false' when I customize the Azure_Blue layout.)

I don't see where this would be affecting the .htm naming...

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Ok, let's get some basics - what version of RH are you running? If it's RH2019, is it Classic or New UI? What type of output are you creating?

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

2019 with the classic UI - output is Responsive HTML5.

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

I should add that I had a similar issue with a project I was creating in the 2019 New UI - content that I had in subfolders in the 'Contents' tab (the equivalent of what I suppose was the Project Folders in the classic UI) had extra text in the .htm name when I created HTML5 outputs. I found that removing content from those sub-folders and just having a 'flat' folder structure (all contents at one level) elimintaed the extra text in the .htm name upon output. Not a great way to have the contents organized but it was the only work-around I could find. I assumed there may have been a similar issue in the classic UI but I can't find it.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Is topic.htm your index page? Because according to Peter, the URL method looks like this:

In RoboHelp 2019 the format is path/index.htm#t=path/topic_name.htm. Note that the # symbol is followed by t=

J

jbirneysanAuthor

Known Participant

Unsure - where is the index page set from? I don't typically don't publish the index or glossary in my help systems.

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