How to Configure Character Limit for Search Result Preview/Context in Responsive Azure Blue Ouput

[RoboFan]

Where do you specify/configure the number of characters from a topic to display as a preview/context for a topic that's returned in the search results? This is the text that includes a search keyword(s) that is displayed between the topic title and topic search breadcrumb/path (aka wSearchURL).

This is for RoboHelp 2020 Responsive HTML5 output that's using the Azure_Blue skin.

[Amebr]

In RH2019 it's in the output preset under Search "Set search context character limit". I would assume it's the same in RH2020, but can't guarantee it. 🙂

[RoboFan]

That's what I thought.

This is RH2020, update 1.

Weird. I have it set to 100. In my output, nearly all the search results adhere to that. However, I have sporadic topics that get returned in searches that will display well over that. For example, one topic displays 1,397 characters (including spaces) for its preview/context text. To add to my confusion, this topic is returned using the search term "startech" (all one word, but without the quotes), yet it doesn't appear in that topic, and the preview text instead highlights the term "starter" AND the "Enable substring search" option is NOT selected for my output.

Even weirder, if I use different search terms to include that same topic in the results, the preview text DOES adhere to that limit. 

I suppose the easiest/quickest attempt at resolution is to install update 2. However, based on issues I've discovered in each new update (been using since RH2019.5), I'm concerned about the potential unknowns that await me there. It would be nice to know for sure what's causing the issue in update 1, and whether it's addressed in update 2. I have 15 projects with over 8k topics and introducing new headaches for the rest of our tech comm team, as well as our end-users, (not to mention myself) is highly desired.

[Peter Grainge]

I haven't seen anyone report this particular issue so I doubt it will contain a specific fix. That said, other fixes may help.

1. The only known issue with Update 2 is that if the TOC has direct links to PDFs, they will not work. There will be a fix for that very soon.
2. If you try Update 2 and it does cause problems, you can uninstall and then go to https://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html and download Update 1. It's a full install.
3. If you go to Support, as I think you need to, they will almost certainly want you to try Update 2 first.

[RoboFan]

Appreciate the consideration. Not crazy about the potential prospect of having to rollback - and recreate 15 Git profile connections. Worse, the potential prospect of installing the update, turning it loose on our tech comm team only to discover a couple weeks later that there are new unforeseen issues that make rolling back untenable.

Hoping to get a dedicated test VM to handle/test these types of issues in the future.

Again, I appreciate the consideration. I suppose I have a decision to make...

[Peter Grainge]

Is this merged help? Wondering if my reply to another of your posts is relevant here. 

[RoboFan]

It is - but like that issue, I can generate/run a project as standalone (separate) and the issue presents itself. 

I should also point out that the two issues at least appear to be independent from one another. That is, one does not follow the other. Also, the missing URL/breadcrumb issue is MUCH more prevalent. I've only seen 3 or so instances/topics of preview/context not respecting the configured 100 character limit; and it's taken several different searches to obsever those. The missing URL/breadcrumb issue can be observered for many topics in a single search (results). 

[Peter Grainge]

Just to be crystal clear, when you run the project standalone, you have generated it again first to a folder outside the merge?

Separate could just mean you have copied the child folder to somewhere outside the mergedProjects but not regenerated it.

[RoboFan · Accepted solution]

Yes, separate generation.

However, I have an update. This issue appears to have "magically" resolved. I made the following changes to each preset in all 12 merged projects (1 parent, 11 children) - and yes, all 12 build presets used to generate the merged output were identical before this. Not sure which of these changes triggered the fix, but it was something:

• General>Use lowercase file names: Removed checkmark; was previously selected.
• Search>Use topic description as search context: Removed checkmark; was previously selected.
• Search>Set search context character limit: Changed from 100 to 150.
• Search>Number of results on a page: Changed from 20 to 10000 (merge consists of over 6.5k topics; audience can use included filters if they want).
• Search>Generate XML sitemap: Removed checkmark.

Was any of those actually causing the issue? Or did changing and saving one of those settings just insert a setting that was missing or corrupt (perhaps introduced at some point while upgrading the projects from 2017 to 2019c to 2019n to 2020)? Who knows? However, the initial search that displayed 1397 characters for one topic now only displays 150** for that topic and the same search - as I would expect.

**It's not a "hard" 150. It seems to vary by a couple characters from one topic to another. Unexpected, but I can live with a single-digit variance.

Note: This also appears to have solved my missing URL/breadcrumbs issue, which is in another post. 

Appreciate the feedback from the community. 

[Amebr]

"Use topic description as search context" may well have had an effect. That should display the text in the topic description field in the search results rather than text from the topic. I would theorectically expect topics without a description to not get a search context, but perhaps Adobe made it fall back if there wasn't one.

Can you check the topic that had ~1300 character search context and see if it has text in the Description field?

[RoboFan]

I would expect the same behavior. I would be surprised if any of our topics had Description text. It's not a field we've ever used. That said, I specifically checked the one topic the issue was observed in and confirmed - it does not have a description. Also, before the issue was resolved, I performed different searches that returned this same topic and the preview text was fine. It was only one specific search that seemed to trigger the excessive preview issue for this topic.