Reverse engineering and drop-down hotspot

[Guest]

I am currently facing a problem in reverse engineering. I am using RoboHelp 8. I have a huge collection of CHM files created using an older version of RoboHelp where source files are missing. I reverse engineered using HTML Help Studio and HHP builder. When I opened decompiled HTML files containing drop-down hotspot entry, I observed that they are working exactly in the reverse order than expected. A page containing drop-down hot spot entry displays the content with drop-down entries expanded by default and is collapsed when clicked the link meant to expand/collapse the content.

The CHM files are huge in number with each CHM containing multiple files with drop-down hotspot. Even if I try to fix them manually, the content is not displayed in RoboHelp editor window (though in output the content is displayed), hence cant edit it using RoboHelp HTML. Kindly suggest me a solution to fix this problem.

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

In RoboHelp, try the options Update DHTML effects in topics. This may fix some of your problems.

There might be more than just the drop downs. See also http://www.robowizard.com/RoboWizard/NewProject.htm#MonthlyScry/062004.htm

I would tackle this problem using RoboHelp scripting. With this scripting feature you can automate tedious tasks. Great for updating topics. You can probably automate most of the reverse engineering. Of course, building a script takes time too. For scripting, see:

• http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/8.0/RoboHTML/WS98613C7C-EF5B-48e9-A91A-D2AABB882687.html
• http://www.adobe.com/devnet/robohelp/articles/robohelp-extendscript.html

Perhaps a friendly developer can help you out with this if you're not comfortable with scripting yourself. You can always post back with questions.

Greet,

Willam

[Guest]

Thanks for your response, William.

After I updated my decompiled project for DHTML effect, pages with DHTML effect stopped displaying the content even from the output.

I guess, I will have to search for a script developer from my organization or try for another solution.

[Peter Grainge]

I am wondering if the trick is that after reverse engineering you first open the projects in the original version of RoboHelp temporarily installed on another machine. After opening in that version, then copy them across to the machine with the new version.

Just a hunch.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge