ZoomSearch implementation on IE

[RoboColum_n_]

I have been experimenting with using the ZoomSearch functionality for our WebHelp output as described on Peter's page. We are using a custom search.html with our own CSS. It all works perfectly in Firefox and Chrome but in IE8 and IE9 it doesn't. I am now at the stage where I am starting to tear out what little hair I have left.

Initially we realised that the custom search.html file we created did not have MOTW in it so we've added this. Still nothing. The link from the skin just displays a blank page. We also have a button in our help's home page to launch the help. This also displays a blank page. So we know it is not a project skin setup issue and the fact that it all works perfectly in other browsers points to IE exclusively.

What is weird is that I've discovered that there are three different versions of the search.html file in the generated project directory. This is despite a conditional build tag being appied to the topic in the project and the tag being added to the SSL.

• First it is created in the root generated project directory.
• Second it is also created in the skin directory of the master project.
• Third the correct file is in the Search directory as expected. I copied it there.

What is also weird is that when the generated help is viewed locally it all works OK in IE. the problem only happens when published to the server.

I am at a loss as to what is going on. Does anyone have any idea?

[RoboColum_n_ · Accepted solution]

I have managed to get my output working with ZoomSearch in IE. It turned out that the issue was with the HTML in the search.html file. As we wanted to use a custom version of the search template the file had been created in RoboHelp and placed in the appropriate output directory. Custom CSS was then applied to it. What I ended up doing was creating the standard search.html file from ZoomSearch and manually amending it with the required HTML and CSS. All worked OK.

We do still have the three versions of files which is a bit of a puzzle but two of them are not referenced by anything so the correct version works as intended. If I find out what causes these to be generated, I post this solution too.