Assistance with Search Feature used in WebHelp output

[MVI16]

Hi Friends,

I have a specific requirement. I am trying to copy and paste a few HTML files in the WebHelp output folder from an external source and display these topic in the final WebHelp output. I was successful in updating the TOC ; merged index entries and glosarry terms and definitions. The external topics appear in the WebHelp output. However, I am not able to understand how my topics can be included in the Search feature. As of now the Search option only searches for key words within the default project topics. How can I extend this search to HTML pages that I have manually copied within the WebHelp output folder?

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community

I'm more than a bit confused here. Why are you manually copying the pages? It seems that you don't mind the pages living amongst the other WebHelp pages. So why not simply copy them into the project? That way they would be included in the search.

If for some reason that's undesirable, you might look into configuring ZoomSearch. Look at the link below for that.

Click here to view

Cheers... Rick

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[MVI16]

Hi Captiv8r,

Thank you for your prompt response.

Sorry for the confusion. I will try to put across a scenario to explain this requirement. I have a situation where I need to provide WebHelp files to various product components.

Example:

I have a product XYZ with components a, b and c. The user of my product has the option to choose components based on their requirement. Let us say that the user selects components a and c during installation time then the respective help files for the components must be installed.

To meet this scenario my plan is to provide WebHelp output for all the components during installation. Based on the selection, a code will copy a  WebHelp output to the target location on the user's system. If the user has selected component a and c then the WebHelp output for a is first copied to the target system. Then the code will copy only HTM files specific to the topic content from the WebHelp folder of component c and move it to the existing WebHelp folder on the target location. In this way I will have topics for both components a and c in a single WebHelp folder. This WebHelp folder will be used to display the final output.

I can use code to merge TOCs, Indices and Glossary entries by manipulating the XML files available in the Whdata folder. However, I am not sure how to get the Search option working in this scenario.

I hope this scenario will give you a better understanding of my need.

Kind Regards

MVI16

[Peter Grainge]

Rick should be safely tucked up in bed right now so perhaps I can help. It looks like merged help would be the solution. Your topics get split into different projects and they all get generated within the shell of a parent project. At that point all the topics would be available. However, remove a child project such as B and the user would only get information about A and C. The TOC, index, search and glossary would take care of themselves. The developers would have to take care of which children get installed. You have to avoid links between projects where one of them might not be present so if B is not installed, you would not want links to it from any other child.

Creating merged help is described on my site.

Webhelp can be installed locally but you may have problems with linked PDF files. Also Google's Chrome browser cannot be used. Ideally webhelp should be on a server.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[MVI16]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your prompt response.

Peter, the merged help solution will work if you know in advance that a user requires certain components. This will help the author to only package those help files. In my scenario, the author does not know what a user wants. The user makes the decision of selecting components and its respective help files only while installing the product. So I need to have a output that combines all the help files during installation.

Kind Regards

MVI16

[Peter Grainge]

The author does not have to know, all they need to do is generate the whole lot. The developer has to pick up on which modules the user is installing and design the installation so that it only installs the relevant child projects.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge