Show All Dropdowns Text Button - Need Help!

[mark.brumley]

I'm using RoboHelp 2017 and the HTML5 output Azure Blue.

In RoboHelp 11 and earlier, we used a skin with a Show and Hide button in the toolbar. This along with some JavaScript expanded or closed all dropdowns on a given topic. Again, the buttons were in a toolbar and not part of the actual topic.

Now, in the HTML5 output, I am trying to do the same thing but with no luck. I can create a show all button using Peter Grainge's "twisty2b.js" but only when I put the button inside the topic. When I place the button in the "functionholder" area (just above the topic), the button does not work.

I have tried various Grainge and van Weelden scripts, put the scripts in various places and made sure the paths were correct, used all sorts of options for the button including simple onClick="show" and other things.

Can anyone please help?

[Peter Grainge]

The background here is that I had a twisty script on my site way back that was provided by Tommy Simmons who used to hang around these forums. As browsers changed, that script broke. A colleague of mine fixed it until the same problem arose later. Then Willam fixed it and made many improvements. I wrote it up and it remains on my site. Willam, of course, also put it on his site. The two versions are slightly different in what they do but both work.

Now turning to your problem, it would seem that HTML5 has broken the toolbar option. I'll contact Willam to see if it is fixable in HTML5.

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@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

I understand from Willam that this would be several hours work and may be on his site in a few months as a paid for script. His suggestion as an alternative is to add the buttons to a master page and attach that to your topics.

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@petergrainge

[mark.brumley]

Ok...thank you to you and William for the help. Yes, I think I will add a show all to a header in the Master Page and see if that works. I believe it will. I'm thinking I might even add CSS and an "absolute" position to give the appearance of being in the Function Holder area. I'll see if that works.

If anyone does get a script and solution I would pay for it. My ideal solution would be to have the existing Print button in the function bar to show all and print.

Thanks!

Mark

[Peter Grainge]

Ask Willam to give you a quote.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge

[prhmusic2]

Curious about adding the "show all" to the master page. Do you have conditional code to only create the button if there are drop-downs within the topic? I don't have drop-downs on every topic so just thinking about how I would handle this concept. Or maybe I would need to have 2 master pages, one with the show all button and one without? I had a mini-TOC within my master page but removed it because some topics only have a single heading and it looked odd - maybe the solution is (again) a master page with a mini-TOC and one without. That gives me 4 master pages:

master page A - with mini-TOC, with Show All button - for topics with +1 heading and dropdowns

master page B - with mini-TOC, without Show All button - for topics with +1 heading and no dropdowns

master page C - without mini-TOC, with Show All button - for topics with only 1 heading and dropdowns

master page D - without mini-TOC, without Show All button - for topics with only 1 heading and no dropdowns

Paul

[Peter Grainge]

There is nothing in the script files that does that so it's the same answer, ask Willam to give you a quote. Else put your own developers on the case.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring information

@petergrainge