Adding Hyperlinks to other projects (Merged)

[lyddion]

I am running into an issue with adding Hyperlinks to other projects.  I have several projects that I have merged into one Master project.  I have generated all the child projects into their corresponding Merged Project folders in the master file.  All I am trying to do is link one project to another.  So in "Child Project A" I have a hyperlink to "Child Project B". I am linking to a "File" which is Project B's HTML file in the Master Project (Merged Folder).  When I do this, I get a message in project A that:

"This action will create an external link to the help system.  The link may not function when the help system is moved to other systems. Create link anyway?"

So I create the link and generate Project A, but when I generate the Master Project, the link does not work. How do I fix this?  Links that I have to pages within a project work just fine, but not when linked externally even though all the projects linked have been merged within the Master Project.

[Peter Grainge]

See Merged Projects on my site. It is all explained there.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

The message is normal BTW.

As long as your structure is as I set out, the links will work in the output.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[lyddion]

Thanks Peter!   I tried to follow the PDF help included with the product, but yours is so much more detailed.  I will re-check my project and re-try.

Cheers!

[lyddion]

Peter, I tried everything as suggested on your site but I am still unable to get my links to work. Is it possible that the link name is too long?

[MergeThis]

If you've configured the merged WebHelp as Peter advises, y

our link to another child project, in the HTML View, should look like this:

<a href="../OtherChildProject/target_topic.htm">Target Topic</a>

The browser needs to go up one folder (out of the current child project and into mergedProjects), then down into the OtherChildProject folder.

Good luck,

Leon

[lyddion]

My link is showing in the HTML like this:

<a href="../../../MasterMerge/mergedProjects/ChildProject2/ChildProject2.htm">test link</a>

Where "MasterMerge" is the name of the folder that I have given to generate the master project to.  I was expecting RoboHelp to convert my absolute path to a relative path that looks like this:

<a href="../ChildProject2/ChildProject2.htm">test link</a>

as you suggested.  I can't figure out why it is changing my absolute path to a relative path that is so long..and still the link is not working.  The work-around for this is that I go into the HTML and just paste in my absolute path.  I don't want to continue doing this.

Note that my actual path looks something like this:

Q:\QA\Application Documentation\MasterMerge\mergedProjects\ChildProject2\ChildProject2.htm

Do I have too many folders?  If so, I'm not sure what to do about this since my project needs to reside on a specific drive and folder at work that other departments don't have access to.

Thanks for responding!  I'm just so frustrated with this because it seems the little details are causing me the most trouble.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Your RH project is local, right?

[lyddion]

Hey Jeff..yes it is.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Great - I was getting a bit confused by the Q:\ drive mention there. Sorry, I don't have any answers for you - I don't do any merged projects (yet - at least for now) so I don't have any experience with them.

[lyddion]

I'm beginning to wonder if it's an issue with our drives here.

[MergeThis]

If you have all folders in your source file directory (as well as mirroring the hierarchy in the output file directory), RH will turn absolute links into relative links, though not immediately.

That is, if your source file structure is this:

C:\xxx_source

...master_project

...projects

......child1

......child2

......child3

and your output file directory is this:

C:\xxx_generate

...master_project

...mergedProjects

......child1

......child2

......child3

and you add a link from child2 to child3 (Link to > File), it will initially appear in the GUI as:

file://C:/xxx_source/projects/child3/target.htm

but if you click OK, then double click the hyperlink, you'll see that the link has been changed to:

../child3/target.htm

This has worked for me since 2004, with RH X5, the since 2009, with RH 8.

Good luck,

Leon

[lyddion]

Leon:

Thanks for the reply.  After re-stfucturing my file folders as you suggested, and as per Peter's site, I found that in this structure I was missing:

C:\xxx_source

...master_project

...projects

......child1

......child2

......child3

A folder holding all the child projects.  Once I did that, my links worked fine!  Prior to this...I had all my projects, including my master project, held in one folder.

[Peter Grainge]

It looks to me that the path

<a href="../../../MasterMerge/mergedProjects/ChildProject2/ChildProject2 .htm">test link</a>

is linking to an output file rather than the source.

Is that the problem?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[lyddion]

Peter..you were right. In addition to re-arranging my folders, I was linking to the source in the Child Folder, instead of the output in the Merged projects folder. Once I fixed these issues, my links worked.

Thanks so much for your help!

[Peter Grainge]

Egh? My point was from your source projects you were creating links to output topics, not the source topic as you should.

Cross project links should be between source topics as on my site. Then when you generate the output, the relative path remains constant and still works in the output.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[MergeThis]

What he said...

Seriously, the links need to be assigned between source file projects within the master>projects>childprojects architecture. All your work needs to be there.

The output folders are just that, output to be viewed, and should never be connected to when working in projects.

Good luck,

Leon

.

[lyddion]

Thanks Peter!  I finally got it.  I had some of the source for my child projects inside of subfolders under the main "Project Files" folder  , not realizing that you can't do this with merged projects. My links are now to source instead of generated files, and is working as expected.