Rick,
Same here - I try to keep in touch as much as my schedule and
my computer will let me!
;-)
South Coast,
Sorry for the delay. Being on the road so much and troubles
with my computer have made it hard to do much with the forums
lately. Here's what I would suggest for your menu system:
1) As you've observed, using the normal external topic link
mechanism in RoboHelp just results in the topic coming up in a
specified window, but since it's the same instance of WinHelp (the
same instance of winhlp32.exe), closing the topic window also
closes your menu window.
2) The trick is to invoke a second instance of winhlp32.exe.
To do that with your menu window, have your link that calls the
menu use the EP macro (yes, I know the macro reference materials
state that EP() is a deprecated macro, but it still works, and its
ability to use Windows command line switches is what you want for
the rest of the procedure).
3) Here's a sample of the menu-calling macro code:
Link Text!EP(`C:\WINDOWS\winhlp32.exe -i default_topic
menufile.hlp',)
Result: Windows instantiates a second instance of
winhlp32.exe and uses the "-i" command line switch to open
"menufile.hlp" to the default topic, or whatever topic ID you
specify. The menu appears in whatever window at whatever position
you have set in the menu project properties dialog.
4) Close the topic window. The menu should stay visible and
accessible to the user.
5) Now, in your menu, your links would have macros coded like
this:
Link Text!EP(`C:\WINDOWS\winhlp32.exe -i External_Topic_ID
externalfile.hlp',)
Result: another instance of winhlp32.exe is launched and
opens your main Help file to the topic with the specified topic ID.
6) Close the topic window and click another link in the
still-visible menu window - you should see that other topic open in
a fresh WinHelp window.
7) The only drawback that I can see is that if you don't
hard-code the path to winhlp32.exe, you get a message that Windows
can't find that file in a path that Windows apparently thinks ought
to be "C:\WINDOWS\Help\winhlp32.exe". I didn't have time to do more
testing or troubleshooting on that issue - maybe next week when I
get a chance to take a little vacation time ...
Let me know if this helps any. Good luck!