CSH, Framesets and Navigation Links issue...

[lyddion]

I'm having a display issue with framesets.  In my projects, I have created several framesets with 2 topic frames, 30% on the left, 70% on the right.

In  WebHelp settings, I have chosen to "Show Navigation pane link in topics".  The problem with this, is that it adds a "Show" link on each side of the frame, and when they are both clicked on, it results in 4 frames being created, with 2 separate navigation frames.

Is there a way to fix this so that frames don't keep splitting everytime I click on a link?

[Peter Grainge]

Version of RoboHelp?

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@petergrainge

[lyddion]

Peter, I'm using RoboHelp 9.  (I tried to add a screenshot but I keep getting the message "The Context Type of this image not allowed".)

[Peter Grainge]

Use the camera icon in the toolbar rather than the attach link.

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@petergrainge

[lyddion]

Ok..that worked   So...my frameset looks like this across the top...but if a user clicks on both "Show" buttons..

.they will see...4 different frames!

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

I can understand why you don't like it but surely it is logical. The idea of iFrames is that you can show anything you like and the two will work independently. You have chosen to show two topics from the help but the iFrame will not care whether that is what you are showing or one page of Ferraris and one page of Mercedes-Benz cars. Whatever you click will work in that frame.

In your case clicking Show means the full help opens in that frame for that topic and the full help for the other frame shows when you click the second Show link. You are still only viewing two iFrames. Before you click Show, they each show the topic only. Afterwards they show the topic plus the nav pane.

Has that clarified?

Back to the drawing board I suspect.

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[lyddion]

Thanks Peter!  That clarifies the issue.  Yes, back to the drawing board.  I really do like the functionality of the iFrames, but  I can't hope to assume that users wouldn't click both "Show" buttons. Oh well!

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

In looking this thread over, it would seem that the solution would be to simply remove the Show link from the topics presented in the Inline Frames, no?

You might achieve this in a few different ways. For example, if it's only these two topics, you might want to massage the HTML code so the frameset detection isn't present. Then the links won't show. Another possible thought would be to name the Iframe the same as what the scripts are looking for before the Show link is written in. My theory is that by doing this, the script will falsely assume you are inside the frameset and suppress the Show link as a result. Again, that's just a theory.

Cheers... Rick

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[lyddion]

Rick:

Thanks for the tips.  I had a look at the HTML code (generated in the Merged Projects) and changing the HTML probably would work. Unfortunately, it is more than just a couple pages that would need to be changed, and everytime I would make a change and re-generate WebHelp, I would have to remember to manually go in and change the HTML code.

The other issue I found is that clicking on the various breadcrumb links seems to gvie me varying results.  My projects are a mix of full pages and framesets.  If a full page is clicked on, there are no problems, however, if a frameset page is selected, and then another one (through breadcrumbs) then it creates more frames!  I suppose this isn't too big of a problem, because at least users can re-size the frames they are in, but it would be nice if there was some type of ""Clear" option that clear the framesets and start with a fresh page when a new link is clicked.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what I should do next, though I'd really hate to lose the frameset functionality.

Quick question though....do you know CSH can be viewed on a webpage instead?  Things work great when I access the content through my local drive via internet-explorer, since I can just press my back button and such.

[MergeThis]

[For your drawing board]

Instead of iFrames, you might think of using <div> sections, possibly using snippets for the content in one or both the divs, then use css to position them aside each other.

Good luck,

Leon