Index entries incorrectly merged in RoboHelp HTML 6

[Snow_Flower]

When I compile a help file, index entries that should appear alphabetically and therefore consecutively, such as "Menu" and "Message" are being merged together, as in "Menu\Message," so that the second index entry appears as a subkeyword of the first entry, instead of as a separate entry. The index keywords appear as separate entries in the Index pane, so I'm not sure why they are merging when compiled. Any idea why this would occur or how to fix it?

[RoboColum_n_]

Could you check the topics that have these keywords assigned and see if there is anything that could be causing this behaviour (e.g. a topic that has Message assigned as a sub-keyword of Menu)?

[Snow_Flower]

Thanks very much for your response. I checked the topics as you suggested, including the topics for the "Message" subkeywords, and I didn't see any overlap in the index entries.

I tried removing the one subkeyword from "Menu" to see if that did anything, but it had no effect.

The project was recently converted from an old ForeHelp project. The index entries appeared to have imported correctly, but with only one help topic per entry. Therefore, I spent a lot of time manually assigning the help topics to the index entries, and generally cleaning up the index (adding subkeywords and such). The original ForeHelp files used very few subkeywords, and the index entries in question appeared correctly there as separate entries.

I've looked at the HTML code that was imported from ForeHelp, and the index entries appear correctly there, and in the Index pane as mentioned. I haven't looked at the RoboHelp file that contains the index entries, but perhaps that is the next step.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[Snow_Flower]

I think this may be a conditions issue, but I haven't resolved it yet. I've been going through the compiled help Index and the Index pane entries and comparing them, to see if this is a problem throughout the index, or specific to these index entries ("Menu" and "Message"). I haven't finished going through it (it's a slow process), but I came across another instance of a subkeyword "Message" showing up incorrectly.

In the Index pane, there are the following index entries and subkeywords:

Fax\Machine
\Message\Delivery

In the compiled help the entries appear as:

Fax\Machine\Delivery

Upon further investigation I found that none of the help topics associated with Fax\Message appear in the compiled "Admin" help that I was looking at, but were all user topics. I think this may be a conditions issue where "Message" doesn't have admin help topics associated with it, but some of the subkeywords do, so that when compiling, RoboHelp isn't showing the "Message" index entry in the Admin help, but is lumping the subkeywords for "Message" with the previous index entry, whatever that happens to be "Menu," or "Fax\Machine."

I tried applying the "Admin" conditional build tag to the "Message" index entry for both cases, even though no Admin help topics are associated with it. I recompiled the Admin help, and they still appear incorrectly as they did before. My guess is that I will have to revise the "Message" index entry somehow, or find an "Admin" topic to associate with it so that it appears correctly.

[RoboColum_n_]

Yes that would be my next suggested step. If all the index keywords are correctly proportioned to the topics, backup and open the project's .hhk file. Look for the <ul> tag immediately after the </object> tag for the menu keyword. You'll also have to remove the </ul> tag after the </object> tag for the message keyword.

[Snow_Flower · Accepted solution]

It is a conditions issue and I've managed to correct it. Applying the "Admin" conditional build tag to the "Message" index entries didn't work without having an associated admin help topic. However, I searched the Admin help, found some suitable admin "Message" topics, and added them to the "Message" index entries. After compiling, the "Message" index and subkeyword entries now appear correctly, and are not lumped together with the previous index entry.