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heath_huff
Known Participant
June 17, 2009
Question

Topics Suddenly Blank

  • June 17, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 1488 views

I'm working in RH7 on a project with three authors.  All three authors are working from a local copy with networked backup.  Four topics appear blank in our local copies, but are present in the published version and in the backup.  All four contain DHTML drop-down hotspots, but other than that are pretty typical HTML files. We attempted to restore the backup copies of those four topics, and the backups appear blank when opened locally, too. This has happened once before, and at some point we lost the content.  Help!  Anyone know what's going on?

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1 reply

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
June 17, 2009

Hi there

What happens if you restart RoboHelp? I've seen it before where all topics suddenly appear blank and restarting normally fixes it.

If it's always the same topics and it's consistent, something probably went all wonky in the HTML code. Usually you can recover by editing the HTML. You might even find you need to locate the topic in Windows Explorer, right-click and display in a browser. Then copy the content from the browser so it may be pasted back into the RoboHelp editor.

Of course that will likely destroy any DHTML going on. (Drop-downs or Expandos).

Cheers... Rick

H
heath_huffAuthor
Known Participant
June 17, 2009

Restarting RoboHelp has no effect, alas.  I'll give a shot to editing the HTML and see what happens.  Currently, it's the same four files.  Previously, we lost another topic in the same manner.  Thanks for the response.

UPDATE: HTML mode shows a single paragraph containing a non-breaking space:

<body>
<p> </p>
</body>

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
June 22, 2009

I don't have access to RH7 but in RH8 dropdowns are coded by adding a <DIV> tag with a javascript reference. Immediiately below is a popup number which contains the actual text, image or table. In RHX5 things work slightly differently in that the <DIV> tag refers to a popup number with the javascript. If you search for that popup number in the HTML you'll find the popup contents. The problem is that all popups are positioned away from the actual DHTML at the top or bottom of the topic HTML.

I am wondering whether the javascript used by these blank topics is different from the others? Try copying the ehlpdhtm.js from another project and see if that makes a difference.

Read the RoboColum(n) for mutterings on RoboHelp, Technical Communication Suite and technical communication.


Hi there

Usually one gets past the JavaScript/DHTML issue by clicking Tools > Update DHTML Effects in Topics.

Cheers... Rick

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