Why do topic question mark icons have red x's?

[Guest]

Hi,

I was given some RH files to update.  But when I open them in RH HTML v. 8, all the topics have red x's on them.  And when I try to open a topic, I get a TOC Page Properties dialog box.  Could you help?  It's possible I don't have the right files...

Thanks,

Erin

[Guest]

But you don't have a file of that exact name in the project.

How  do I know? Because on January 7 you posted a screen shot of your  project, and under the "Project Files" view (which was expanded) the  only file that appeared was "RoboHHRE.lng." Apparently, your project has no content. Import the target file into your project, and the broken link should resolve itself.

Remember, RoboHelp does NOT use the file system to determine which files are part of a project. The  fact that a file exists in the RoboHelp project folder is virtually  meaningless. If a file does not appear in the RoboHelp "Project Files"  view, either as a topic file or as a baggage file, from RoboHelp's  perspective it does not exist! Look at the properties dialog you posted. The "Existing Topics" list should show every file and every bookmark in the project that the Table of Contents can reference. In your case that list is empty.

Start by using RoboHelp to re-import all of the relevant files in the RoboHelp project folder into your RoboHelp project. Then let us know if there are TOC references that remain unresolved.

(BTW, the "Broken Links" tree view is extremely helpful in finding files which have been referenced elsewhere but which are not included in the project definition.)

[Guest]

Thank you for all the help and information.  When I try to import the files (right click on Project Files and click Import, and select one or more files and click Open), I get an error (Adobe RH 8 has encountered a problem and needs to close) and then RH closes.

Am I doing something wrong?  If so, could you give me any instructions on how to import files into the project?  And would I just import the html files?  Those are the ones that seem to be missing.

Thank you!

Erin

[Guest]

Are you (or have you been) using RoboHelp's Conditional Build Tags in your project? (CBT seems to be the area where RoboHelp is the buggiest).

[Guest]

Actually, I do not know, but it's quite possible.  I inherited these files from a writer in another branch of the company (different state) who is no longer with my company.  I'm tasked with making updates to the files. Unfortunately, there's no expertise in RoboHelp where I work, so there's no one I could ask about this here.

Is there a way I could tell if there are conditional build tags?  What do I look for?  I could look at an earlier version of the project if that would help.  It does not have these errors.

[Guest]

When I have had RoboHelp just up and quit on me it's usually because of a  mismatch in CBT processing instructions resulting from me editing the  files outside of RoboHelp (it's hard to find a good WYSIWYG HTML editor,  and RoboHelp is no exception to this rule).

If you could import the files from an earlier version of the project, that would probably be the simplest solution (assuming it works). If it doesn't work (or if you're just plain curious about how RoboHelp works [or doesn't]) read on.

First of all, you are comfortable working with raw HTML in a simple text editor, right? Good.

RoboHelp implements Conditional Build Tags by inserting XML Processing Instructions into the XHTML source files. If you were to mark a paragraph with a CBT and then look at the HTML source you might see something like this:

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MyFilter" ?>

<p>This is a paragraph. It consistes of one of more complete sentences which discuss a single thought or topic. Do not use paragraphs as line-breaks; they are two completely different concepts.</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

If you find a <?rh-cbt_start ?> Processing Instruction in a file, then that file uses Conditional Build Tags. If there is no "<rh-cbt_ ..." text in the file, then you can skip the next section (but you don't need to if you want to learn more about CBTs).

Every <?rh-cbt_start ?> PI requires a <?rh-cbt_end ?> PI. Block-level elements (<div>, <p>, <ol>, etc.) each need to have there own CBTs; nested CBTs around block-level elements tend to make RoboHelp confused. For example, if you were to build a file containing:

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MyFirstFilter" ?>

<p>Paragraph 1</p>

<p>Paragraph 2</p>

<p>Paragraph 3</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

RoboHelp would import it, but after a single edit the above section would be rewritten as:

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MyFirstFilter" ?>

<p>Paragraph 1</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MyFirstFilter" ?>

<p>Paragraph 2</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MyFirstFilter" ?>

<p>Paragraph 3</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

If, on the other hand, your original file was:

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MyFirstFilter" ?>

<p>Paragraph 1</p>

<?rh-cbt_start condition="MySecondFilter" ?>

<p>Paragraph 2</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

<p>Paragraph 3</p>

<?rh-cbt_end ?>

you end up with your CBTs mixed together in a way I haven't quite figured out yet. While I cannot speak definitively, I think that if you don't get the end PI's just right RoboHelp goes into an infinite loop on loading the project, and the process tree has to be killed from the Task Manager.

My first suggestion is to start with a single file, and using a simple text editor go throught and delete every "<?rh-cbt_..." processing instruction you find.

If removing all CBT Processing Instructions does not fix your problem, you may have invalid XHTML files. As you may have gathered, RoboHelp is not very robust when loading files it did not create itself (or which you have hand-edited, like I frequently do); as a programmer, I'm not very tolerant of this kind of cavalier approacy to error handling.

There are a number of tools that can help detect invalid XHTML files. One of the most common (and the one built into RoboHelp) is the open-source HTML Tidy (http://tidy.sourceforge.net/). Some people like xmllint. The Microsoft

Visual Web Developer Express (free with registration) can also validate documents (and is a very good HTML editing environment as well).

Of course, troubleshooting a single HTML file by hand is not terribly difficult. Open the file in a text editor, and immediately after the body element place a comment string, ending the comment before the ending body element; viz:

<html>

<head>

....

</head>

<body>

<!-- this is a comment

....

this ends the comment -->

</body>

</html>

Try importing this file. If it still doesn't import you have bad headers (maybe an unterminated <meta> element?). If it succeeds, keep moving the starting comment down by paragraphs until the import is unsuccessful. Move the comment back to the last successful position. Then do the same with the closing comment, moving it up until unsuccessful. You should now have isolated the portion of the file that is causing the problem. Delete that section, and retype it inside RoboHelp.

I hope this has given you some ideas about where to go from here.

[Peter Grainge]

You can see where a CBT is used by right clicking it and looking in the Used In tab.

I would need to check if that picks up topics with tags applied to text rather than the whole topic.

The easy way to remove a tag from text is to right click the text and click the Remove Attribute option. If it reads Remove Attributes (plural) then a dialog will open allowing you to pick the CBT.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I looked through some of the downlevel version files, and did not see any CBT.  However, I was able to import one of the HTML files into my current-level project.  I tried importing WebService Hierarchy.html.  When I did, I got two error messages.  First:

The html was opened in a Notepad file.  When I closed the notepad file and tried to open the file in RH again, it still opened in Notepad.  Then, I got this message:

I guess I may need to go back to the downlevel files and go forward from there since the source files seem buggy.  But I was wondering if these messages have any significance to the issues I'm having.  Now I'm not seeing the second message any more.

Thanks,

Erin

[Guest]

Please define or explain the phrase "downlevel file." (I can explain what you're seeing, but I need to be sure we're on the same page first.)

[Guest]

Hi Peter,

To see the CBT, what do you right click?

Thanks,

Erin

[Peter Grainge]

What are downlevel files?

To associate a topic with the RoboHelp editor, right click and select it in the list displayed.

Topics that have a CBT applied will have a shaded background in Project Manager. If the CBT is applied to some of the content, that content will have a shaded background.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

I have a version 3.5 or something (dowlevel/old files that do not have the latest revisions).  These files work fine.  The 4.0 files, the up-to-date version of files, are the ones I'm having trouble with- RH does not recognize that they are in the program and I'm having trouble importing them into the RH.

[Guest]

When RoboHelp creates an HTML file, it adds the following <meta> tag in the <head> section of the document it creates:

<meta name="generator" content="Adobe RoboHelp 8" />

(thus the message about the "META/GENERATOR tags" you saw earlier).

When you double click on a topic in the "Project Files" list, RoboHelp first looks at the file to see if it contains this particular <meta> element. If it does, then it will open the file in the RoboHelp design view, otherwise it opens the file using the editor associated with the file extension in the Tools->Options->Associations dialog.

Personally I think it is unwise to edit a RoboHelp topic file in anything but the RoboHelp editor unless you really know what you are doing, so the association for your project files should all be set to the RoboHelp editor. There are a number of different ways to skin this particular cat.

1. When a file comes up in notepad (or other editor) copy the above line and paste it immediately before the <title> element in the <head> section. Save the file and close the editor. From now on the file will be opened in the RoboHelp design view.

2. Right click on the topic name in the "Project Files" list and select "Edit With->Design View". The file will open in the RoboHelp Design view. Make any kind of change to the file (add a space and then delete it) and save the file. RoboHelp will invisibly add the appropriate <meta> tag to the file and it will now always open in the Design View.

3. When you see the dialog "[name of editor] is currently associated with HTML files that do not have..." click 'Yes' to associate the Design View with these files. This should be what you want, and will have no impact outside of RoboHelp.

4. From the RoboHelp menu bar select Tools->Options. Select the 'Associations' tab in the dialog box that appears, and set the options according to your preferences.

Except for little housekeeping details, it doesn't sound like there is anything wrong with the files you're trying to import, or at least nothing's wrong with WebServiceHierarchy.html.

HTH

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

Wow, Lee, seems you covered it pretty thoroughly.

For me, the simple answer I would suggest would be to simply click Tools > Options > Associations tab and ensuring that the Use Default Editor option is enabled as shown below:

Click image for possibly larger view.

Using this option will ensure that double-clicking to edit any HTML page simply opens it in the RoboHelp HTML editor.

While the other options are nice to know about, the folks that find themselves confused by the behavior and are asking here about it likely want the files to open this way anyway. Those power users that wish to have other editors likely already know about the configuration.

Cheers... Rick

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