Search in RoboHelp 8

[Vedado1]

I migrated a project from RoboHelp 5 to RoboHelp 8 and now the search is not working.  I don't know where to start to check.  Thanks

[RoboColum_n_]

I'm afraid we are going to need a bit more information than that to help you. Can you be more specific as to the exact problem with the search. Do you get results, but not what you'd expect? Do you get nothing? Also can you tell us the output type you are producing.

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[Peter Grainge]

Can't look right now but wasn't this exact same question dealt with very recently. Try the new search boxes that Rick Stone added to make searching easier.

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@petergrainge

[Vedado1]

I get no results/no returns back when I type in a word or words. Output type is webhelp.

The only thing we did was just open the original file in RH8 and republished using the same output type as before.

[Peter Grainge]

Cindy and Vedado

Please open one of the supplied sample projects and generate an output from that. Same problem?

You will find the samples at

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 8\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US

or

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Technical Communication Suite 2\Adobe RoboHelp 8\RoboHTML\Samples\en_US

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@petergrainge

[cindy0711]

I do not have the Search problem when I generate the sample project. I think it is something to do with my project; I also found last week that when I created a fresh project, I did not have the Search issue.

[Peter Grainge]

Try generating to a different folder and if that fails try creating a new layout.

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@petergrainge

[archerdc]

Peter, can you link to the post by Rick Stone? I searched for it with no luck.

I have a search problem of my own with RH 8 - generating WebHelp. I tried several suggestions from another thread:

- substring on/off

- change dictionary

- define keywords in index and search for a specific defined keyword

- generate new layout

- generate new layout in a different folder

- move all project files to a new location and generate to a new folder

- zip project and send to coworker (she has same issue on her machine)

- create new project with a couple topics of dummy text

The issue I have is this: When I generate the layout and test the Search function, it returns the first 12-15 words of the default first topic. Doesn't matter what the search term is - whether it's for a specific keyword or a commonly occuring term in the project.

It's a very small project (the Word version is 45 pages) and I haven't really departed much from the default settings in RH8. I'm sure there's a setting I'm overlooking but no idea what it could be.

Any ideas? Two-topic dummy project (with 0 formatting and no tweaks except to generate a smart index) attached.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Peter and I are co-moderators for the RoboHelp forums. I believe you may be thinking that Peter suggested I posted something that adds new search boxes to RoboHelp. Instead, he was referring to using the new search fields I added to the forums themselves as shown below:

Cheers... Rick

[cindy0711]

I am having the same problem -- search is broken in RH8, but only in Firefox. IE works fine. My desired output, and the output in which Search is broken, is FlashHelp. I have tried generating to multiple different outputs (FlashHelp Pro, WebHelp, WH Pro, HTMLHelp) and none work except WH Pro. I cannot use that output, though, as we need the Flash capabilities for other reasons.

I have tried generating to a different folder -- did not solve problem. I read the other posts on this subject, but none of them resolved my issue. Help!

[Peter Grainge]

Yankcap

Generated your project and the search works fine. I searched on second and module, both found the second topic.

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@petergrainge

[archerdc]

Peter,

Interesting. Thanks for testing it out. What are some common environmental factors that could be inhibiting the search?

So far three team members have tested it on their local machines as part of team review - it's not up on our QA server just yet. One reports that it works partially in IE6, but takes about 15 seconds and the results don't click through to anything. The others report that it doesn't work at all. Between us we have everything from XP and IE6, Vista with IE7, and Windows 7 with IE8 and Firefox. None of the browsers are throwing any errors or security messages.

I'm not that concerned for this individual project - we will just disable it and be ToC reliant. But I do need to figure this out for more robust projects down the line.

[Peter Grainge]

How are other team members testing if the help is not on the server?

Is your project local and are you generating to a local folder?

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@petergrainge

[archerdc]

I zipped the project folder (5 MB) and emailed it to them, this time. All they have to do is extract to copy the entire folder structure to their machines. It will go up in a QA environment later this week.

[Peter Grainge]

OK, let us know how it goes.

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@petergrainge

[cindy0711]

Yes, project is local and generating to a local folder. I have tried generating to different folders. Yes, other people have encountered the same problem w/ the output. Nobody else has RoboHelp (I am the sole writer), so no one else can test aside from testing the output; however, generating to a different machine has the same problem. I am wondering if the project is the problem.

[niann0rth]

On the issue of search in RH8. In the footer of every topic we have the file name of the topic. With RH5 output our accuracy checkers used this to point users at the correct guidance to follow. The user could then put the file number in the search and a single topic would be returned in the search results.

In the output I have from RH8 it does not appear to search the contents of the footer so this specific search does not work. Is there a way I can get RH8 to search the footer?

I have tried turning the sub string search on and off when generating in case that made a difference.

[cindy0711]

I have the same setup: filename in the footer. Search does not work on that, either -- in Flash and in Firefox. Search on filename works fine in WebHelp output, or other browsers (e.g., IE).

[niann0rth]

That's interesting becuase my output where the search does not work is webhelp and the search fails to pick up the footer in both explorer and fire fox.

I'll try generating flash out put and see what happens there.

[niann0rth]

No, the search does not see the footer file name in either web help or flash help output.

Is there a setting somewhere to exclude the footer from the search? Or is it that this is functionality not in 8 that was in 5?