RH8 Webhelp not working with IE8 - potential workaround

[SaundraLD-bWCCqx]

So after about 2 hours on the phone with Adobe, and no luck getting even an ounce of support, I'm totally frustrated and ready to give up.

Problem - generate webhelp with RH8, display in IE8. Browser opens, spawns a blank window. Help might be displayed the first time, but subsequent calls, no help displayed. One developer has trusted sites listed and they NEVER get help to show up, not even the first time.

Research - developers did some debugging and found that even though we are using IE8, we fall into the IE5 branch of the whcsh_home.html file.

RH call from the code being used is:

                  RoboHelp_CSH.RH_ShowHelp(0, url, RoboHelp_CSH.HH_HELP_CONTEXT, roboHelpTopicId);

Here is a snippet of the code where the failure is happening (the failure line is bold and larger font size:

if(gbIE5)
     {
      var curWnd = null;
      curWnd = window.open("about:blank",sNewName,strOpt);
      goNewWnd=window.open(sURL,sNewName);
     }
     else
     {
      gsURL = sURL; // IE4 had hard time to handle bookmark.
      goNewWnd=window.open("about:blank",sNewName,strOpt);
     }
     setTimeout("postWindowOpen();",100);

Temporary solution that we used - now this isn't optimal, but at least we can actually SEE the help instead of staring at a very blank window... We replaced a section of the bolded line above as follows (replace about:blank with javascript:false)

if(gbIE5)
     {
      var curWnd = null;
      curWnd = window.open("javascript:false",sNewName,strOpt);
      goNewWnd=window.open(sURL,sNewName);
     }
     else
     {
      gsURL = sURL; // IE4 had hard time to handle bookmark.
      goNewWnd=window.open("about:blank",sNewName,strOpt);
     }
     setTimeout("postWindowOpen();",100);

What this does for us - well, we now can see help! Every time you make a CSH call you get a new tab in the IE8 browser window for that help call. Make 30 help calls, get 30 tabs.

I have been unsuccessful in getting through to someone from Adobe to log this as a bug.

I hope this helps someone.

[Peter Grainge]

Here are two links to previous threads on this subject. I hope something in them will help your developers.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2784389#2784389

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1046329#1046329

To register bugs please follow this link.

http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38

Although it has already been logged, the more people who report a bug or request a feature, the more likely  it is to be actioned.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[SaundraLD-bWCCqx]

Thank you, Peter.

Yes, we have explored both threads you mentioned, but neither had the solution we found to work for RH8 and IE8. We got it to work by getting rid of the blank window and just opening a new tab for every CSH call. Not pretty, but better than nothing.

I have submitted bug, and have tried twice to get support via phone.

Meanwhile - we'll have dozens of tabs for each use as they navigate through help.

ps - LOVE your website! Visit it often!!!

[Peter Grainge]

Have your developers looked at the Calling Help topics? The Calling WebHelp Using URLs might help, not sure.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[SaundraLD-bWCCqx]

Are we using the wrong call?

RH call from the code being used is:

                  RoboHelp_CSH.RH_ShowHelp(0, url, RoboHelp_CSH.HH_HELP_CONTEXT, roboHelpTopicId);

I'll forward the info to the developers about calling webhelp just to cover all the bases, but I think that they have already gone through all that. Will try though. Thanks.

[SaundraLD-bWCCqx]

We are using map ids. Does that change things?

[Peter Grainge]

Quite probably it does change it but I can't make that call. It will need your developers to decide if the way we fixed things using URLs can be carried across to their way of calling (using map ids).

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge