Dead Hyperlinks

Report · Jan 14, 2011

I am using RH7

I have generated a Merged Webhelp project with the following structure:

Master

- ChildOne

- ChildTwo

- ChildThree

- etc

The Master project only has one boilerplate topic which has no links.

The Child projects have inter-related links.

I use a custom skin, and custom templates.

My generation settings are:

Output: to folder on my desktop

Mark of web is on

w3c compliance is on

Toolbar: no Index

Show navigation is on

enable hightlight is on

search input field is on

Synchronise TOC is automatic.

When I generate the output - all cross-project links are dead, but links within a child project are ok, By Dead I mean that they don't do anything - no errors, etc. I have also cleared the browser cache, and tested in both IE and Firefox. The cross-project links are reporting as broken in Xenu, but testing the links in RH they are fine.

I generate the Master project first, and then each child project.

The same structure/ skin/ templates/ settings are used in other projects which work fine.

Any ideas??

Report · Jan 14, 2011

Are you generating the child projects into the correct place?

If you look at the location where you generate the parent, look in mergedProjects and see if the child project content is there.

Post one of the cross project links here.

Are you running the Xenu check on the output? If you are, then something has happened to those links.

As you have got this running with other projects, it has to be something simple that is not right.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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Report · Jan 14, 2011

Hi Peter

Thanks for quick reply...

Check - All output is in correct folder

Check - Running Xenu against the output.

I have opened two instances of RH and compared the generation settings etc against the working project. no differences...

This link is from the "creditors" child project and links to a topic in the "appendices" project. I have copied it out of the output topic and pasted it here:

"Please refer to the General Reports topic "

Report · Jan 14, 2011

 
 
Here is the source for the page where the link is located...
  the link is on line 87
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<!-- saved from url=(0014)about:internet -->
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-style-type" content="text/css">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<meta name="generator" content="Adobe RoboHelp - www.adobe.com">
<title>Creditor Reports</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../AccessBlue_ns.css" type="text/css">
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"> 
<!--
if (navigator.appName !="Netscape")
{   document.write("<link rel='stylesheet' href='../AccessBlue.css'>");}
//-->
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"> 
<!--
function reDo() {
  if (innerWidth != origWidth || innerHeight != origHeight)
     location.reload();
}
if ((parseInt(navigator.appVersion) == 4) && (navigator.appName == "Netscape")) {
        origWidth = innerWidth;
        origHeight = innerHeight;
        onresize = reDo;
}
onerror = null; 
//-->
</script>
<style type="text/css"> 
<!--
div.WebHelpPopupMenu { position:absolute; left:0px; top:0px; z-index:4; visibility:hidden; }
-->
</style>
 
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="../whmsg.js"> 
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="../whver.js"> 
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="../whproxy.js"> 
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="../whutils.js"> 
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="../whlang.js"> 
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2" src="../whtopic.js"> 
</script>
</head>
<body>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2"> 
<!--
if (window.gbWhTopic)
{
        if (window.addTocInfo)
        {
        addTocInfo("Creditors tab\nReport & Analyse group\nReports");
addButton("show",BTN_TEXT,"Show","","","","",0,0,"","","");
 
        }
        if (window.writeBtnStyle)
                writeBtnStyle();
 
        if (window.writeIntopicBar)
                writeIntopicBar(1);
 
        if(1)
        {
        
        }
 
        if (window.setRelStartPage)
        {
        setRelStartPage("../dx_creditors.htm");
 
                autoSync(1);
                sendSyncInfo();
                sendAveInfoOut();
        }
}
else
        if (window.gbIE4)
                document.location.reload();
 
//-->
</script>
<h1>Creditor Reports</h1>
<p>Please refer to the <a href="../../nfpAppendices/reports/genreports.htm">General Reports</a> topic</p>
<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2"> 
<!--
highlightSearch();
if (window.writeIntopicBar)
        writeIntopicBar(0);
if(0)
{
 
}
//-->
</script>
</body>
</html>

Report · Jan 14, 2011

The link is prima facie OK but I stick by if Xenu says the link is broken, then there is something wrong with it. Have you tried with more than one browser?

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 14, 2011

check - both IE8.0 and Firefox3.6

I just don't know where to begin ... the links are ok within the Source environment, which leads me to think that there is something going wrong with the output generation...

Report · Jan 14, 2011

How big is the whole lot zipped up?

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 14, 2011

just under 8Meg

Report · Jan 14, 2011

I've just had a thought. Perhaps a dangerous thing...

I have had my PC rebuilt over Christmas, and had a 2nd disk drive installed.

All of the RoboHelp projects have been moved to the new disk. I have had to manually create the folder structure, and then had SourceSafe get the latest version of each project into the newly created folders. The crux of this is that my folders are now named correctly, whereas the RH xpj still have the original names. for example nfp_appendices.xpj is in the folder nfpAppendices.

Looking at the output, in mergedProjects the folder is referred to as nfp_appendices, but the hyperlink is looking for ../../mergedProjects/nfpAppendices/reports/genreports.htm

could this be the problem? if so, how do i fix it?

Report · Jan 14, 2011

So you recreated folders with new names and imported topics. Any of those topics that have cross project links are thus looking for folders that no longer exist. It looks like you either have to rename the folders or fix the links.

This should also have screwed topics in the same project but in different folders, unless the target folder didn't get renamed.

After making a backup, you could use a multi file find and replace tool such as FAR to find all instances of say nfpAppendices and replace with nfp_Appendices but you have to be careful. I would review each change rather than hitting the Replace All option.

Have a great weekend.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Help others by clicking Correct Answer if the question is answered. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here. "Upvote" is for useful posts.

Report · Jan 14, 2011

Good Weekend? I will now!

Thank you very much!

Your assist is, as always, hugely appreciated.

Ron

Adobe Community

Dead Hyperlinks

1 Correct answer