Favicon for context-sensitive Help (WebHelp)

[LuckyClover]

Hi. I've created a WebHelp project for a Web-based software application, and it includes context-sensitive topics. When these topics are launched from the application, the icon of the browser is displayed in the topic frame. Is there a way to replace this with a custom icon (favicon)? We want to match the favicon that is used with the product, to the Help output. There is a ton of information about creating favicons online, but not much when it comes to tweaking HTML source for WebHelp projects. Any tips/ideas are welcome!

[Peter Grainge]

<quote>When these topics are launched from the application, the icon of the browser is displayed in the topic frame.</quote>

Browser icon in the topic frame? The topic only has what you put in it. Can you explain more?

[LuckyClover]

Hi, Peter. When the context-sensitive topic is invoked from the (Web-based) application, the user's browser information is displayed in the top portion of the window (the default browser frame). In this case, the user will see a URL and the browser icon (IE). I'm wondering whether it is possible to overwrite any browser favicon (such as the IE logo) with the product favicon (for example, adding a line of code to each topic)? Our developers are very concerned about the consistency of how information is presented, and I agree, it would be nice not to have to see different icons throughout the Help (such as the whstart.ico when the main product help is launched, which I have replaced with our favicon).

[Captiv8r]

Hi LuckyClover

What you may wish to try is to insert a line in your HTML code that looks like this:

<LINK REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="InsertURLHere/favicon.ico" />

Note that I said "try". I said this because sometimes RoboHelp tries to be ever helpful and amends (read - removes) things we add in TrueCode view.

Of course, you would want to save your personalized icon as "favicon.ico".

Cheers... Rick

[Peter Grainge]

Now I understand, you are referring to how to get an icon such as I have on my site. It was the reference to the topic frame that through me. You are referring to the address bar.

I see Rick has explained how.

[LuckyClover]

Hi, Rick. Why is it important to name the favicon, "favicon", specifically? Also, I'm not sure what I would use for the portion of the inserted code, ="InsertURLHere

So, I'll give this a try in some of context-sensitive topics. Is there a way that I can test this on my computer? Right now, I'm checking the output from the WebHelp folder (launching the Help start page, index.htm). I understand that I can probably see changes by publishing (HTML), but I don't have a server for this (publishing as a local file system). Thanks again.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Assuming your site has a known URL (such as http://www.RoboWizard.com or something similar) that is what you would be expected to place there.

You may wish to review the link below:
Click here for more

Cheers... Rick

[LuckyClover]

Well, I changed the header code for the Help project start page (index.htm) as follows:
var sIcon="favicon.ico";

Also, as a test, I added the following code to the header portion of some of the context-sensitive topics
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico">

And voila, nothing works. Our developer took the code and made a sample html page, and when we opened the page in Mozilla, the favicon displays. The same page doesn't display in IE (we need our favicon to work in IE 6.0). I have the favicon in the WebHelp output folder, also. Can anyone tell whether the HTML changes are off/wrong or whether there is an issue with IE 6.0 with rendering the requested changes?

Thank you.

[RoboWizard]

Hi again LuckyClover

Where the icon isn't appearing, is the topic by chance inside a folder? If so, that probably explains why it's failing. Your code is specifying only the icon and no path. So if the topic is inside a folder, it can't find the icon.

Cheers... Rick

[Peter Grainge]

Do some googling on this. I did to get the favicon working on my site. One of the pages I found indicated that FF responds immediately but IE can take a while.