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Index in a merged project displaying differently on other PCs

Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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Hi all,

I currently experiencing show stopper level problems with an HTML help merged project at present.

First of all let me say that all is created and build on a real folder in the c drive locally.

What happens is I compile my help project into HTML help i.e chm. On my PC index is fine showing everything it should but on other pcs when the smed same help is displayed large chunks of index entries are missing.  This has completely broken my faith in mergre dprojects and I won't be using them again as they always seem to let me down at the worst possible time.

Any ideas or has anyone else experienced this?

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Community Expert ,
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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This is not normal behaviour so don't lose your faith.

How are all the CHMs getting to the other PCs? They should all be in one folder on your PC, are you copying that folder to the other PCs? Do the individual projects work OK on the other PCs?


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Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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Hi Peter,

Firstly all the chms are in the same place i.e the same folder.

The chms are selected then copies to a folder in the c drive of the other users machine.

The individual help files seem to work ok but not the master (or parent) project help file

Also this particular help system has always worked up until now. It's actualy a legacy product help system we've ahd for a while which is very big.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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Are all the projects set to the same language?


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Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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As far as I know, yes. I will double check

but this would not have changed since the lst release of the help,sytem which worked.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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You are not allowing for what the elves may get up to.

One other thing, get one of the other users to create a zip of the files from their machine and send that to you. If you run what has been copied back, does it still work for you?

What OS on the various machines?


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Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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Re language settings, opened files to double check and  these are all the same. Mainly because it's "elf " not elves i.e only me!.

The OS on the various machines is windows XP service pack 3

If I copy back and run it works fine for me. That is the index shows properly and fully...

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Community Expert ,
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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Any spaces, underscores or non alpha numeric characters in the file names?

Can you pin the problem down to one or more specific CHMs in the setup?


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Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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The only file to feature an underscore was the parent help project xx_help.

This is what I've just tried which does show an effect:

The filename of the compiled output was changed to be in the format xxhelp instead of xx_help

The result was that only index entries from the master project showed in the other machine where as on my pc, all but two of the sub projects displayed index entries correctly.

As we've changed the behavior of the problem using the filename of the compiled output, what else should I normally do if I've chnage the name of the output file bearing in mind that this is a merged HTML project?

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Community Expert ,
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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I think I would create a new folder to which I generate and create new CHMs.

This is covered at the end of my RH8 merged help article.


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Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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Many thanks Peter the project now displays properly on both my PCs and other PCs.

To sum up,

The problem was caused by their being an underscore in the master project filename which had never previously been a problem. Something unkown probably an update some where meant that this caused problems. A fact demostrated by a change in index displayed when filename of compiled output was changed.

I first chnaged the output name to use no underscore and pointed it to a new folder. I then re-linked all mreged projects just to make sure prior to compiling. I then tested on my own pc and several others from the local C drive and they all worked,

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Guest
Mar 30, 2010 Mar 30, 2010

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A bit of an update on this issue,

During a recent software release the problems of the index not including merged project content occurred again.

By this stage the master project ouput filename did not include underscores and was all lower case. Also the usual file location rules were followed and also avoiding use of network drives.

The issue was resolved by re-linking all the slave projects merged into the master and re-compiling (to chm) something we'll have to do for the remaining future releases for this particular product.

From my point of view I still don't feel I can trust HTML help merged projects. We're tightening up our test regime and also changing to web help for more recent products. Even with the web help I'll be minimising the use of merged projects althought it has so far mainly been a problem with html help (chm).

I'd be interested to know if anybody else has experienced similar problems of late??

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Advisor ,
Mar 31, 2010 Mar 31, 2010

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LATEST

Our merged WebHelp consists of 42 projects and 7 writers, and has been maintained for 6 years, now (X5, then RH8). We haven't experienced any TOC or Index issues, perhaps because each WebHelp project is more of a standalone generation (an independent mini-compile, if you will).

WebHelp search is not as good as with HTML Help, so we switched to Zoom Search several years ago. Do yourself a favor and follow Peter Grainge's excellent advice on both merged WebHelp and Zoom Search.

And, as always, come back here for any clarification on specific issues.

Good luck,

Leon

Message was edited by: Peter Grainge to correct the link.

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Guest
Feb 23, 2010 Feb 23, 2010

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I should also say that the methods used to copy are all the same

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