Merged CHM - last added chm bumped off

[psk_rh]

I have created a merged help file (chm) using RoboHelp 7 on winx XP SP2 and IE7.

I can see that the TOC, index, and search works fine on my machine and any Vista mchine. But on some machines (for example, Win XP SP3 with IE7), the last added chm is bumped off. (In my case, it's the Glossary). Also, in this environment, the index and search results are only partial.

Any suggestion on what's causing this issue?

Thanks.

[RoboColum_n_]

Are all the CHMs installed in the same directory? If they aren't, they won't appear in the TOC, index or search.

Signoff Mk.II

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[psk_rh]

Yes, they are all in the same folder. And they work fine on a Vista machine. But when I copy the chm files to an XP or Win 2003 machine, the last chm is bumped off and the index/search results are incomplete.

[RoboColum_n_]

How is the master CHM being called? Via an application? What happens if you launch the master CHM file manually. Do they get everything then?

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[psk_rh]

Yes, I am launching the parent chm manually.

[RoboColum_n_]

It might be worth checking that the CHM isn't blocked. Check the file's properties for an "Unblock" button.

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[psk_rh]

Checked the properties, I can confirm that the chm file isn't blocked.

[RoboColum_n_]

Can you manually open the Glossary.CHM file on the XP machine? I also assume you checked the unblock option on that PC. Is it also possible to check whether this is only a problem on one XP PC? If so, and it is only one PC, it may be would checking that they have all the required HTML Help components installed. Failing that, take a backup of the HH.DAT file on that PC and install the file from a PC that works.

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[psk_rh]

Can you manually open the Glossary.CHM file on the XP machine? Yes

I also assume you checked the unblock option on that PC. Actually, there's

no Unblock checkbox in the properties.

Is it also possible to check whether this is only a problem on one XP PC?

No, multiple PCs with Win XP SP3. But on my development machine, which is

Win XP SP2, it seems to work fine .

Still tried with copying HH.DAT to one of the target machines, problem still

persists.

[RoboColum_n_]

Could this be down to the versions of IE installed on these PCs. Check out this link.

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[psk_rh]

I suspect you are right - could be because of IE8. I need to test on few

other machines before I can confirm.

[psk_rh]

Checked on machines with Win XP SP3 and IE7 - Glossary.chm is NOT displayed

in TOC.

Works fine on Win XP SP2 with IE7

Works fine on Vista with IE7/8

I added another Glossary2 to the parent CHM - only then can I see the

Glossary1 (but glossary2 goes missing again) on problem machines.

As I said earlier, moving the chm above other chms in the TOC also does not

help.

[RoboColum_n_]

One other thing worth checking is that you have $global_ as a prefix on all our CHM window definition names.

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[psk_rh]

Yes, I do.

[RoboColum_n_]

You might be able to tell I'm clutching at straws here but how about recompiling the glossary, deleting the reference to it in the master TOC and readding it.

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[Amebr]

Could you open the .xpj file in a text editor (notepad will do) and see if there is anything in the section <mergedhelpfiles> section?

We had this problem and solved it by ensuring the merged chms are listed here. NOTE: this introduces a different bug, where the paths to the chm files are hardcoded. The solution to this is to double-compile the master chm - compile, open the hhp file and delete the paths in the [merge files] section, then recompile.

The format of the mergedhelpfiles section is:

<mergedhelpfiles>
    <file>
        <name>myproject.chm</name>
        <comments></comments>
    </file>

</mergedhelpfiles>

I can't remember how I discovered the format, because RH doesn't seem to add the merged chms here - or maybe it's something to do with the history in the particular project (created in BlueSky RH9 I believe).

(Hmm, now that I think about it, I don't think I've reported this to Adobe - we discovered the problem with X4 or X5 when the product was moving between ehelp, macromedia and adobe and it wasn't sure it would even be continued...another job to add to my todo list. )

HTH

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

You might wish to give this a try. I seem to recall that sometimes there are issues when a merged section appears at the end.

Add one entry as the last entry in the TOC. Just a page pointing to a topic. Compile and test. See if that prevents the last merge from being lost.

Cheers... Rick

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[psk_rh]

Thanks for the suggestion -I added a topic towards the end and regenerated.

The topic displays fine but the Glossary.chm is lost again. I moved the

merged chm above other chms, but still this chm is not displayed -

suggesting something's wrong with that particular chm.

Can't figure out what's wrong though - all the window properties and project

settings, layout settings, etc seem to be the same for all projects. Also,

what's weird is that it works fine on all Vista machines. I can see this chm

alright on a vista machine. Can't get it work right on others (win xp for

example).

Thanks.