How to specify a link to launch in another help window ?

[Guest]

In my application project I have defined two windows ; a main window (Main) for the reference material and a secondary window (Popup) for the dialogue level help. The main window has TOC, index etc and the popup window does not.

The decision about whether help is launched in the main window or the  popup menu is made by the calling code in the application ( >Main or  >Popup).

However, It is quite common to provide a link from a dialogue help topic (Popup Window) to a more detailed topic in the reference manual material (Main Window) but I cannot seem to make this work - any links clicked open in either the same Window or a copy of IE.

Can I specify in a link whether the resulting topic is displayed in the Main Window or the Popup Window ??

Thanks,

Iain.

[Amebr]

Assuming you're using chm, you can do this using Related Topics controls, but it requires a bit of hacking of HTML in the topic you are creating the hyperlink in. These instructions are for RH6, but hopefully work and are similar for RH7 and RH8.

1. Insert a Related Topics control and ensure the 'Hidden' option is selected.

2. Select the hidden control and switch to TrueCode. The code should be displaying code for two <object> tags.

3. Find 2 locations where the topic is referenced, and add the chm file name to it. See the red areas in the attached image.

4. Find param name="window" and add the window name of the window you want to open in the value section. See the green area in the attached image.

5. Take note of the object ID. See the pink area in the attached image.

6. Switch back to WYSIWYG view.

7. Open the Hyperlink dialog box for the hyperlink you want to open in a specific window.

8. Use the following as the link:

javascript:RelatedTopics.Click();

where 'RelatedTopics' is the ID you noted in step 5. If it's the only Related Topics control in the topic, it's likely you can just paste the above code.

Hopefully I've remembered all the steps.

[Captiv8r]

Hi all

Amebr - Sweet and exactly what I would have recommended.

For all reading this thread you need to be aware that this suggestion WILL NOT WORK if you are using RoboHelp 8. At least not without some serious finagling.

Here's the deal. RoboHelp 8 introduced a bug that has been reported but not corrected. The bug is with the code inserted for the control. Oh the control will function fine as long as you leave it as a button. But if you hide it and attempt to open it using JavaScript, you will watch it fail miserably. What happens is that RoboHelp 8 doesn't insert a necessary ID tag. This is why things fail. So you will end up having to switch to HTML view, add the missing ID tag, then save and close the topic. This is fiine but what will happen is that the next time you open the topic, the WYSIWYG editor will "ever so helpfully" remove the tag you so carefully added.

Hoping everyone floods Adobe with Bug Reports on this. It's quite frustrating.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

Thanks to both.

I've been trying the proposed solution (excellent post !! ) and couldn't get it to work with Robohelp 8. I thought it was either finger trouble or a problem in that I am working within a single CHM file. That is, my project has two windows and I want to click on a link that launches a topic (in the same help file) in the other window for the help file.

Given the second reply (much appreciated) It's looking like it's not my mistake; hope that Adobe can sort us out with a patch.

Iain.