Please help me with this weird project.

[PerfectlyLonely]

Dear all:

I've got this project to make a chm file. The project consists of five child projects, and some topics within the master project itself. (see the first figure below) I didnt do anything to the project, just want to generate it. But after i generate the project and open the generated CHM file. It looks nothing like the TOC in the project. (see the second figure below). The CHM file has a bunch of contents that are not shown in the TOC, and none of the child projects are included.

As i check those "bunch of contents", they are actually the topics in the master projects under the HTML files folder.

So can anyone help me with these problems? I'm using RH8.

p.s.

1. The project seems like a combination of old version of RH and FM. Outside the folders of robohelp project files, there are some **.fm and **.book files.i'm not sure how they are related to what i need to do with the project.

2. I open the project in the following weird way:
a. Extract the rar file of the whole project files. Open the project by double clicking the "**.hhp" file.
b. By doing this, I got the "**.xpj" file. But the original TOC becomes blank. The "HHC" file is 0kb.
c. So i re-extract the files, the new HHC file replaces the blank one.
d. Open the master project by doule clicking "**.hhp" file. And the TOC is shown, as in the figure above.

Thanks!

[Peter Grainge]

If all the other project files were in the extract, then I don't follow why the XPJ wasn't. I am assuming there was no XPJ otherwise why use the HHP. This was all done previously in RH? Opening the project other than by using the XPJ does have consequences. See Opening Projects on my site.

The TOC in the parent will not look like the final TOC unless the parent can see all the child projects. Maybe you have generated to other folders and not placed copies all in one folder.

Take a look at Merged Projects on my site. In the RH8 version there is information both on producing merged help generally as well as some specific information about merging CHMs.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[PerfectlyLonely]

Thanks a lot for your reply.

To answer your questions:

1. "I am assuming there was no XPJ otherwise why use the HHP"

Yes, i only see HHP file. Any consequence by opening the project with this? Well, the consequence so far i see is the blank TOC.

2. "This was all done previously in RH? "

I'm not sure and i dont think so. The following softwares are needed for the project before. So can you explain to me anything i have to pay attention to?

- Adobe FrameMaker 7.0

- WebWorks Publisher 7.05

- Microsoft HTML Help Workshop 1.3

- Adobe Acrobat 4.05 or later

- Microsoft FrontPage 98 or later

3. "Maybe you have generated to other folders and not placed copies all in one folder."

I did what you say, and get the right result.

One thing that i'm quite curious is that besides the child projects, there are some topics in the parent project that are not shown in the project TOC but in the generated CHM file, like "Apperance" shown in the figure within my first post.

[Peter Grainge]

It looks like the problem here is that you are changing the workflow by using RoboHelp which was not part of the previous setup.

I would be starting by looking at the TOC of the parent. It should show its own content in the normal way plus placeholders at the top level for the child projects. In the output, you should then see the parents topics with the child project TOCs instead of the placeholders.

You cannot see more topics in the TOC of the output than are in the source TOC so I would check the dates of the files you are looking at. I suspect you may not be looking at the latest output.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[PerfectlyLonely]

Thank you a lot for your reply.

i tried to open the TOC file with HTML Help Workshop, it goes with the end result. But RH8 still the same, which is "some topic missing from the TOC".

So is it the right way to go that i use RH8 to edit this project? If that definitely would cause weird problems, i may think of using other tools.

And if so, can you recommend some tools?

Thanks in advance!!

[Peter Grainge]

It sounds like things have been set up to work in a different way from RoboHelp. So you either have to work with RoboHelp and get things working or you have to use the old workflow. It will likely be the same issue if you start with other tools so I'm not clear what is to be gained by that.

Did you look at the Merged Projects pages on my site to see the RoboHelp setup?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge