Skip to main content
darrenjansen
darrenjansen
Participating Frequently
December 14, 2016
Question

Table of Contents' Sub-Items Don't Expand after Translation

  • December 14, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 1061 views

So in short I have RoboHelp HTML 9.0.1.262. I'm generating WebHelp with new translations but the translated table of contents doesn't work.

So here are the details. I tried generating the source (English) webhelp with the language set to the target language (French). No problem. I opened the project with Help & Manual 2 GO as my server, and everything looked fine. The TOC worked fine.

Then I copied over the translated documents (only .htm, .hhc, and .hhk files, no others) from my translation tool (memoQ) into the RoboHelp project folders, replacing the English files. I then recompiled the webhelp, but the TOC sub-items will no longer expand. The Index and Search still work fine.

I tried some experiments. I tried replacing only the .htm files with the newly translated files but not replacing the .hhc and .hhk files. That worked fine. The content all appeared as French except for the TOC, and the TOC worked as normal. The only problem was that it gave me a warning in RoboHelp that said, "Configuration Error." Other than that everything seemed to work fine.

I tried another experiment. I tried compiling the parent project with some of the child projects in English and one of them in French. When I opened this parent project, the French child project's TOC didn't work. However, after I clicked on an English project's TOC and opened a sub-item, the French TOC suddenly started working. Even though it was working, it still felt a little buggy because sometimes the sub-items didn't want to close again or you had to click twice on them to open them.

I have not manually altered any .js files. I also used Beyond Compare to compare the source .hhc and .hhk files with the translated files. As best as I can tell, none of the xml code had been corrupted in the translation process. Only the strings were changed. The xml tags were all identical.

What is causing this TOC bug? Any ideas? How can I fix this?

(P.S. I'm viewing the output in Chrome. I don't think that has anything to do with it.)

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Jeff_Coatsworth
Community Expert
Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 14, 2016

Did this ever work? Frankly, with RH9 and Chrome, I'd be surprised that any WebHelp displayed properly (what with all the browser security changes that have taken place). Is it behaving with any other browsers?

darrenjansen
darrenjansenAuthor
Participating Frequently
December 14, 2016

I'm not supposed to use Chrome?

The TOC works a tiny bit better perhaps on Firefox 50.0.2, but it's still buggy.

The TOC won't appear at all on IE11.

What should I use?

Is the problem with RH9? Is that version obsolete or something?

Thanks Jeff!

P.S. Note: I'm not just opening it up off my desktop. I'm using HM2GO for a server.

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
December 15, 2016

Thanks Jeff and Rick,

Turns out that in those two languages 1 out of the 7 child projects actually works. Strange. We're going to try retranslating those .hhc and .hhk files to see if that changes anything.

Thanks for the feedback. I wasn't sure if there was some known issue that was causing this or some setting that needed to be changed.

Darren


I believe that what you will find is there are essentially two ways to translate that information.

1. Open an instance of RoboHelp and gain access to the file. Then translate it using RoboHelp.

2. Open the raw HHC file and translate it using Notepad or some other app.

Because things broke, my guess is that option 2 was used and some of the surrounding XML code was munged in the process.

Cheers... Rick

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices