Need help for developer

[namedujour]

I am the only one at the company with any Robohelp experience - we just got the license - and I need a programmer to assist me with setup. I recall very little about the folder hierarchy for parent/child projects, and the programmer needs me to walk him through this. What do I need to tell him to do to set this up on the server? Is there any published information on this that I can send him a link to?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Questions questions. What output are you creating? (WebHelp, Flash Help, AIR Help (Application) AIR Help (Browser), Microsoft HTML Help (CHM).

Is this output to be linked to an application or just placed on a server where folks have a link to view it?

Is this to be a Merged output?

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[namedujour]

Sorry! I gave you nothing! I'm in Robohelp 9, and I will be using WebHelp primarily (and Air Help later,and only sporadically). I believe they want the link to the online help from the company web site, but this could change.

I'm not sure what you mean by "merged output". There will be multiple projects merging into the parent project. Is that what you mean?

Thanks!

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Maureen.

Are you going to produce a merged WebHelp to a server location. I ask because this forum is for the RoboHelp Server application which is something different altogether and I don't want to mislead you with an incorrect answer. If I surmise correctly, check out this link on Peter Grainge's site - an excellent resource BTW -  which will tell you everything you need to know.

If you are publishing to the RoboHelp Server, you do not need to do the setup in Peter's article. So long as your RoboHelp Server area has the option set to automatically merge projects of the same type, you should be OK to go.

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The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[Captiv8r]

Hi Colum

Colum McAndrew wrote:

... I ask because this forum is for the RoboHelp Server application...

Unless something recently changed, this is the RoboHelp General forum, is it not?

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[RoboColum_n_]

So it is Rick. Sorry the sun must be getting to me

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The RoboColum(n)

@robocolumn

Colum McAndrew

[namedujour]

It's Robohelp HTML, not the server version. In the past, I published to a directory on the server, and will be doing this again.

I took a peek at the Peter Grainger article, but didn't read thoroughly. I can now say with certainty, though, that it will be a merged project. What is the hierarchy for the folders? I remember that the parent project was the primary folder, and the child projects all went into a subfolder. The child folder contained sub-folders for each child project, and these contained all files except the .xpj file, correct? That one has to stay on my hard drive.

Is the directory structure something we set up, and then assign as the output path? Or does Robohelp create the directory when you publish? I can't remember.

Thanks so much for your help!

Maureen

[Peter Grainge]

If you are generating merged webhelp you need to do more than take a peek.

All the structure is explained and there is a download so that you can see it and work with it. It may also help your developer to understand what you are giving him.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[namedujour]

I peeked and saw that the page mentions 6, 7 and 8, but did not mention Robohelp 9. I take it the information in Multiple Outputs still applies?

Thanks,
Maureen

[Peter Grainge]

Two things different in RoboHelp 9.

Dynamic User-Centric Content. - Forget it for now.

The dialogs where you generate. The fields are mostly the same so the article will still help you. The structure stuff is unchanged.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[namedujour]

It appears that the information in the Robohelp 8 section is what I need. This should be enough then?

Thanks,
Maureen

[MergeThis]

If you and your developers decide on context-sensitive help by calling the topic URLs (as described in Peter's tutorial), you'll need to create a home-grown alias file that will tell the app which folder (child project) to look into to find the topic. For example, we call ours form_path.txt (edited in Notepad, placed in the master folder, and added to Baggage Files so that it gets copied to the output).

Entries are thus:

AcctTargetFrm, mergedProjects\refwindows\targets_window.htm (file name does not match the form, so is added here)
AcctMainFrm, mergedProjects\refwindows (file name matches the form, so is not added here)

It's less maintenance to continually name your topics to match the forms, but if you already have many legacy topics in place you can simply add the name to the related entry, as in the first line of the example. Another thing our paradigm developer provided, is a Ctrl+Shift+F1 key combo in the app that displays a dialog with the form name. This way, we can always verify the correct form name without having to chase down a developer for the info (sometimes they'll rename a form without sharing that info with anyone).

Good luck,
Leon

[namedujour]

Thank you so much! I'll pass all the information along!!

Maureen

[Peter Grainge]

You may not need an alias file as Leon suggests but only if you have followed a strict naming convention.

We create topics to a set name pattern so our developers know what the topic name will be for any given screen. As a result they do not need an alias file. However, no such name pattern and you will need the file Leon refers to.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge