CSH without hard-coding full web address

[Amebr]

Hi guys,

Is it possible to make CSH calls within a merged help project without hard coding the full web address in the link?

For example, in a topic I want to link to a search topic which exists in a project for functions common across all modules.

At the moment I just insert a link following Peter Grainge's source project set (described on his website, but modified slightly to work with Multiscreen HTML5).

I was thinking maybe it was possible to create the links using CSH Topic ids as this would solve a number of issues if we ever need to support more than the desktop output (long story why we aren't using Responsive HTML5 and not something I can change in the short term). However, I seem to need to specify the full web address, which means the links are incorrect when I publish to our review environment.

Instead of inserting my link as:

http://mydomain.com/index.htm?rhcsh=1?&rhmapid=SEARCHTOOL

I'm hoping to enter the link something like:

rhmapid=SEARCHTOOL

And have it just do the CSH call based on the current location. So it won't matter if the call is made on the production website or on the review website

Is there a built in feature like this, or would I need to get a custom script built?

Thanks

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Can you use /index.htm?.... as the URL? It's an absolute URL but RH may like it. As an alternative, you can set the URL in the HTML code as well. As long as you don't open the URL in te Hyperlink dialog, you'll be fine.

I'm not sure if it is still an issue, but in the past I've found that RoboHelp doesn't like URL parameters in URL's. When I opened the link in the RH interface (double click the link, right click hyperlink properties) RH would remove the parameters. You may want to check whether this is still an issue.

[Amebr]

Thanks for that suggestion. I had to add several /.. to navigate back to the parent project (for the publish location) to get this to work for mutliscreen merged help.

The parameters seem to remain as long as the path starts with a /. If it starts with ../ then the parameters are not saved at all in the dialog box but must be entered in code only.

So this works and keeps the parameters:

/../../../index.htm?rhcsh=1&rhmapid=SEARCHTOOL

This loses the parameters when using the dialog box and can only be entered directly in the HTML:

../../../index.htm?rhcsh=1&rhmapid=SEARCHTOOL

On the downside I've also discovered the csh calls in general also bork the Back button slightly. You have to click and hold the Back button and select from the history to get back to where you were, hitting Back just takes you back to the csh call, and I couldn't get a double-click to bypass that redirect. (Sometimes a triple-click works and sometimes that takes me too far back)