Topics won't open

[Guest]

Over the summer, I worked on a merge project, setting up almost four dozen projects and merging them into a Main Project, all went fairly smoothly.

However, I don't recall having this problem: Over the past week or so, I set up a small project and merged it into Another Main Project. The merged project shows up in the AMP Table of Contents, along with its three topics; however, none of the topics will open.

Anyone?...Anyone?...
Thanx,
Lon

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Lon.

Are you saying that nothing happens when you click on the TOC topics or that an error is displayed? What happens if you open the small project's help file separately?

[Guest]

Hi, Colum!

Good questions ... I should have provided that info in my first post.

1. Nothing happens. No message of any kind; I click on a topic, and it just sits there, mocking me...

2. Topics open just fine if I compile and View Result, or even if I open the .chm file...

your move...
Lon

[Captiv8r]

Hi Lon

Is this happening in the development environment or in the final output? I wondered since you mentioned they "work just fine" if you are viewing result.

If it's inside RoboHelp, perhaps double-check the editor? (Tools > Options)

Cheers... Rick

[Guest]

Hi, Rick/Captiv8r,

It's the final output; I compile the Merge project (which is already merged into the Current Project), then when the View Result form comes up, I view the finished product, click on the topics, and they open up just fine.

The problem comes in when I call up the Current Project.chm file; I can see the books, I can open the books and see the topics ... but when I click on the topics to open them -- nada.

back to you,
Lon

[Guest]

I had this problem too. I found that the reason was two fold

1) The 'merging' of the projects where handled at different levels. When you do this, you can't call linking between the different levels of the merge.

2) Certain projects had binary TOC. Aparaently, they don't merge well.

[Guest]

Hi, anubis!

Please excuse my being obtuse, but I don't understand...

... "merging of the projects where handled at different levels." The project I merged is on the same level as books that hold similar content.

... "binary ToC"; how would I determine/fix this?

thanx,
Lon

[Guest]

I have a very, very large help projec that I had made. The higher ups decided that they wanted the source split into multiple sections.

so I split it into the following structure:

Main Project
---Introduction Project
---Menu Options Project
------File Menu Project
------Edit Menu Project
------View Menu Project
------Machine Menu Project
---------Module 1 Project
---------Module 2 Project
---------Module 3 Project
---------Module 4 Project
---------Module 5 Project
---------Module 6 Project
------Constraints Menu Project
---Right Click Menu Project
---Tips Tricks and FAQs project

The main project was, essentially, just the holder for all of these smaller projects (btw - that is a very, truncated list)

If I tried to link to a Module Project to the View Menu Project. Nothing happened.

I ended up having to re-combine the project back to my hunormous project.

The binary TOC is an option that you can check when you perform a single source layout. Go to your SSL pod, double click on the Microsoft HTML Help, click the 'Edit...' button next to Advanced Settings and then go to the TOC Styles.

You will find a check box for Binary TOC. If it's checked, uncheck it. I could not get a project with a Binary TOS to merge with any other project properly. That of course doesn't mean that it can't be done though, I am sure.

[Guest]

Hi Andrew,

Apparently "binary ToC" is not the problem.

Your description of your project sounds like the one I did over the summer; a few minor snags along the way, which we solved as they came up, but nothing like what I'm dealing with now...

Lon

[Guest]

Hi, All!

Still coping with the aforesaid problem, but here's a twist:

In my first post, I mentioned that I had worked on a project over the summer -- let's call it Project A -- that has about four dozen projects merged into it.

Now, working on Project B, I try to merge a project into it -- the only project to be merged into B -- and the flippin' topics don't open after they've been merged (they do when Project B is opened by itself).

The "twist" is this: Just for grins, I merged my New Project into Project A ... and it works! Topics open as they are supposed to.

So, the question is: What could be keeping them from opening after being merged into Project B?

thanx for any assistance,
Lon

[Peter Grainge]

You refer to merging but it sounds more like you are importing. Which is it?

[Guest]

Hi, Peter!

I realize that, with the problems I keep encountering, I must seem quite the RoboHelp neophyte, but ... maybe it's a lack of clarity on my part.

When I create a new topic for either project (currently existing A and B), quite often I import a Word document. I've done this uncountable times.

However, as I mentioned in my first post, I have created nearly four dozen individual projects to merge into Project A, and am now trying to merge a project into Project B. I'll refer to the project I'm trying to merge as Project C.

So, the problem as it now stands: I've created a new version of Project C, merged it into Project A to test the topics, see if they will open; they did. Then merged Project C into Project B (the original goal), but still the topics in Project C do not open.

alles klar?
Lon

[Peter Grainge]

OK let's not use the term "merging" as that relates to something quite specific and it is not what you are doing. As far as I can see you are creating a project and creating the help for some specific area. When you are happy with it, you are then importing the Word document from the project into your main project. Is that the workflow?

[Guest]

Oh, Peter, Peter, Peter … I thought I was being especially clear – as a writer, I pride myself on my clarity of expression – but apparently I need to go through this by the (very detailed) numbers.

First of all, yes, merging is exactly what I’m doing. Back to square one:

In my office, we have two primary Help systems: one for the programmers (IT Help – the aforementioned “Project A”) and one for the non-technical end users (USER Help – “Project B”). The IT Help system contained 25 main books, some of which had several sub-books. We decided that, for ease of handling and to decrease compile times, we would turn these books into individual Help projects and merge them into IT Help. So, now, on my desktop I have shortcuts to about 40 Help projects, which means about 40 .chm files are merged into IT Help … and it’s working just fine.

The USER Help system is updated/rolled over annually, and has been since 2004-2005, so we have a set of at least a dozen books for each year from 04-05 to 08-09 – and some of the topics in these books can get quite complex, so you can imagine how the USER Help has become large and unwieldy of late (takes about 12 minutes to compile).

So, it was decided to create a separate project for the 2009-2010 year (Project C, previously described) and merge it into the USER Help system … merge, not import. Hence, the problems I have been describing.

By the way, I created a hyperlink from an existing topic in the USER Help to one of the merged topics … and the merged topic opens right up.

Lon

[Peter Grainge]

My apologies, I should have taken more time to read through the thread. The joys of trying to solve a problem for someone while you are solving your own.

OK, help me a bit more. In your latest post you say you started with your IT Merge as one project but split out into a merge and the process worked and continues to work. Now you are looking at the next phase of work for User Project. The plan here is to have the new topics in Project C and that will be merged with User Project.

In the post before you said the following except that I have renamed the projects

"So, the problem as it now stands: I've created a new version of Project C, merged it into IT Merge to test the topics, see if they will open; they did. Then merged Project C into User Project (the original goal), but still the topics in Project C do not open."

What I would like you to do, assuming I have got it right now, is create a copy of User Project and then trash most of the content to reduce its size. Then create a folder called Lonno and copy this reduced User Project to a folder under Lonno. Then copy Project C to Lonno. Finally zip up Lonno and send it to me via http://www.transferbigfiles.com. (I assume both projects are currently directly off your C drive)

Email me via my site with a link to this thread and use that email address for the file transfer.

[Guest]

Hi Peter!

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I presented your offer to my supervisors, but they would like to keep the problem solving in-house, at least for the time being.

So, what I've done is to make a copy of the current project (Project B), which is the one I want to merge into. Now, a new problem has come up. When I try to compile the new (copied) project -- without a second project merging into it, I get an error message that reads:

"Failed to generate HTML Help (Microsoft HTML Help). Please see compilation messae for details." Then, below, the message merely reads:

"Internal error encountered. Failed to generate HTML help."

Any way I can find what the "internal error" is?

Thanx!
Lon

[Peter Grainge]

Can someone who works with generating CHMs take this please?

[Peter Grainge]

Isn't there a scroll bar next to that message? Any more information further up?

Sounds like it is going to be a bit of trial and error with a copy of the project.

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Lon.

I've just reread through this entire thread and I have to admit I am getting just as confused as others have been. I appreciate that your superiors want to keep it in house but I do think that in this case it is better for someone external to see what is going on first hand. You can thrash most of the output and even easily remove content in what is left to protect the data.

Just one thing I picked up on. You said in an earlier post that you have many shortcuts on your desktop. You also haven't confirmed that the source files are not on a network drive. Note that your Desktop can be part of a network in a corporate environment.

[Guest]

<<Isn't there a scroll bar next to that message? Any more information further up?>>

I went back to the message, clicked on it, and this came up:

"Copying files... Warning:

"P:\staff\groups\IT\FAMETEST\Help\P:\staff\groups\IT\FAMEHelp\Help\Dialog.cid"

cannot be copied to

"Q:\FAME\Help\FAMETEST\!chm_tmp_folder_0\P:\staff\groups\IT\FAMEHelp\Help\Dialog.cid".

reason: source does not exist."

Well, I looked in the Help directory, and, sure enough, there IS a Dialog.cid file...

the saga continues...

lr

[Peter Grainge]

That looks you are working on a network. Is that the case?

[Guest]

Hi Peter

Yes; the RoboHelp software is on my PC, but the .xpj file, etc., are on the P: drive so that everything gets backed up every night. Is that a problem?

lr

[RoboColum_n_]

Yes working on a network drive can and does cause problems. By all means backup to a network drive but NEVER open a RH project when it is situated there. RH uses an underlying Access DB that are prone to all sorts of problems that disappear when you move the source files to a local drive. Try copying the source to a folder (e.g. C:\RHSource) and see if that makes a difference.