Large merged WebHelp system takes forever to display TOC/Index in Firefox

[Guest]

Hi,

We are using a merged Web Help system (RoboHelp 9). There are about 20 modules, many of which are optional.  In Internet Explorer 9, it works fine and displays the TOC/Index within 10 seconds.  But in Firefox 19.0, it takes a full 3 minutes to display the TOC/Index. Obviously this is unacceptable.  One of our doc people did some tests and determined that when you have a merged TOC structure, but one or more of the merged projects are not actually present, Firefox seems to spend a long time waiting for it to appear.  Eventually just displays the TOC without the missing projects (as it should).

Does anyone have suggestions on how to mitigate this?

Also - and I think this is an entirely different problem - I can't get the Chrome browser to display anything except the help toolbar, even for a single (non-merged) help module.  Is there a security setting that I'm missing?

thanks,

Jenny Hecker

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

The Chrome "security fix" isn't addressed until RH10 - see grainge.org for workarounds for earlier versions.

[Willam_van_Weelden]

For Firefox: make sure all child projects are available. Use Conditional Build Tags in your table of contents to exclude the child projects you don't need for different outputs.

You can even specify several Single Source Layouts to create multiple WebHelp outputs for different uses.

Greet,

Willam

[Guest]

Willem, doesn't that defeat the usefulness of the parent module in cases where some of the child modules might be installed later, for separately purchased add-ons to the application?

[Peter Grainge]

I see where Willam is going by suggesting different outputs with different combinations but I'm hoping that can be kept in reserve.

From the look of it, you are testing the help when it is installed locally rather than on a server. That could impact results. Try generating  the parent first and then all of the children to a web server location. Once they have all been generated, then try removing different child folders.

I recall seeing this issue before quite a while back and I think it was when not all the children had been generated once.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Hi Jeff, I found something on the grainge site about the Search feature not working in Chrome, but my problem is bigger than that - no content displays in either pane... Just the toolbar. If there's another bug fix that addresses that, I couldn't find it. Help?

Thanks,

Jenny

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

The "fix" caused all local help content in Chrome to be suppressed. It comes from Chrome not allowing you to open local HTML files. The workarounds are to move the help to a real web server; set up a fake web server locally; or to launch Chrome with a command line tag to allow local file access.

[Guest]

Thanks Peter and Jeff,

You're right - I was checking the help locally.  Using a web server immediately fixed the problem with Chrome.  I still have a problem with the timing on Firefox, but I will try Peter's suggestion and let you know.

Again, thanks to everyone!

Jenny