Purpose of Redirect in Merged Help?

[Jared Hess]

RH 2017 13.0.2.334

Greetings RoboHelpers! After 14 years of merged help .chm goodness in RoboHelp, we are finally making the switchover to using web-based help, specifically using the Responsive HTML5 layout. We're also trying to mimic the merged help we had in the chms.

This week I've been working at converting our help system outputs to that format, creating layouts etc,  and getting the merged help figured out. I have the merged help working, but have a few questions:

First, I saw on Peter's site, information about about a javascript redirect in his instructions:
Merged WebHelp and HTML5 Help

What is the purpose of that js redirect? I didn't really understand its purpose and so didn't implement it.

Second, our parent help project that the child helps are merged beneath does contain a few topics itself. What is the best way to link to those parent topics in RoboHelp from the child projects? How can I maintain those links when topic files get renamed?

Third, simiilar to second, what about sibling to sibling links? We have 500+ links between sibliing .chms that we will need to convert. Links that look something like this:

<a href="pcdmiscmm.chm::/pcdmis_cmm_introduction.htm">PC-DMIS

CMM</a>

I plan on using Np++ to do some pattern replacements across the board for each of the .chms we are linking to. Is there anything else I should know, or best practices I should follow?

Fourth, I nottiiced that if I make change in the parent help project and click publish, it tries to publish everything in the child helps, even though I've published them separately already. How do I tell RH not to do this and to ONLY publish that parrent project?

That's it for now. I'm sure I'll have more as I continue my foray. Many thanks in advance.

Jared

Message was edited by Peter Grainge. Title referred to WebHelp but thread is about Responsive Help. Purpose of redirect is the same in both.

[Peter Grainge]

I have edited the thread title.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Ioana_St]

Ah! I am indeed using WebHelp. It hadn't occurred to me that Xenu would not work on Responsive... but I will file that under "reasons to postpone the migration"

[Peter Grainge]

Harsh! Xenu has not been update since 4th September 2010. You'll be waiting a long time for Xenu to get changed and that's not Adobe's fault.

I know it's an extra step but I think generating both outputs whilst time consuming has to be the answer. There are other link checkers available that will work locally but look at the price.

Maybe RoboHelp should have a link checker that works on the output as well including merged help. BIG HINT.

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See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

@petergrainge

[Jared Hess]

Thanks Peter for checking that. I think that option will work. And thanks Ioana_St for your documentation on Xenu.