• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Replacing context sensitive CHM help with context sensitive HTML Responsive Help

Community Beginner ,
Nov 03, 2017 Nov 03, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi everyone,

Our product links to multiple CHM files authored in Robohelp 2015. Each screen in the product links to a different help topic. For the CHM help, we use help IDs in the .HH file and aliases in the .ALI file.

For example, for the help topic which explains how to log in, we have an entry in the .HH file and another in the .ALI file.

In the .HH fileIn the .ALI file
#define Login 100<alias name="Login" link="its:Help.chm::/Logon.htm"></alias>

In our product, we have a function that opens the CHM file and passes the relevant help ID to RoboHelp to display the topic.

Now we want to change to responsive HTML5 help published online. But ideally, we'd want to keep the Help IDs that we use in the code.

  • Can help IDs be used for web help?
  • If yes, does RoboHelp use the .HH and .ALI files for web help?

For example, would this work for web help?

In the .HH file
In the .ALI file
#define Login 100<alias name="Login" link="its:www.webserver.com/Logon.htm"></alias>

If not, what is the process for creating context-sensitive web help using Help IDs?

Thanks very much in advance,

David.

TOPICS
Classic

Views

839

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 05, 2017 Nov 05, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'm pretty sure you shouldn't have to change what you're doing in Robohelp, but the developers will need to change how they call help.

There's a section in the RoboHelp help under Context Sensitive Help called "Information for developers" which contains information about the call for different programming languages including a guide to where to find the files developers will need to import if you follow those methods. Note I haven't tried those methods, but inside the Javascript  developer file there is information about using it with multiscreen html5. (there's no specific mention that I can find of html5 csh in the RH11 help, and I assume that is also the case for RH2015).

Willam has also provided details on a different method on the Help Essentials site, covering both multiscreen and html5:

https://www.helpessentials.com/2017/08/05/context-sensitivity-in-responsive-and-multiscreen-html5/ 

Hopefully this will get you started.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Nov 10, 2017 Nov 10, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks Amebr, I'll take a look.

I'm sure you're right about the developers having to call the help differently, and I'll also have to change the ALI file too to point to a web server rather than a chm file, assuming I can still use the ALI file to map the topics to the IDs.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 12, 2017 Nov 12, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Ah, yes, if you chm name is hard coded in the ali, then you'll have to re-map. (Although from memory, that was only needed when using a parent/child setup - it this the case for you?)

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Nov 13, 2017 Nov 13, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Yes, we do use a parent/child setup. It wasn't always that way though, a few years ago we had one large help project without child projects. We've always used the .HH and .ALI files though, even before we created the child projects.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Nov 13, 2017 Nov 13, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Yep, you shouldn't have to change how you use the .hh and .ali in RH, although I haven't tried it in Responsive myself.

Given it's merged, I'd recommend also reading Peter Grainge's pages on csh, There's a topic about mergin in WebHelp, which would be worth reviewing in case similar issues occur with HTML5, plus there's a snippet specifically about CSH and HTML5. (Also check out the other HTML5 snippets for known issues that might help generally).

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Nov 14, 2017 Nov 14, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

Thanks for your help Amebr.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Resources
RoboHelp Documentation
Download Adobe RoboHelp