Question from Peter Grainge's R-L webhelp workaround procedure

[Guest]

Hi,

I have a follow-up question to the Right to Left languages procedure posted on Peter Grainge's page.

The link to the procedure is here:

http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/right2left/right2left.htm

Under the assumptions, one of the bullet point states:

"The topics in your original left to right project do not use any  RoboHelp specific features such as conditional build tags, snippets and  variables. It may be possible to use these features with additional  steps but that is outside the scope of these procedures."

My group is investigating using this procedure to generate right-to-left languages, which RoboHelp does not natively support. And we would be using build tags and variables extensively in our documentation.

Has anyone successfully used this procedure before with variables and build expressions for R to L languages and if so, can they provide any additional steps that may be required or point a link to these steps? Or, if perhaps, Peter Grainge can answer here. This could be a potential deal breaker for us from using this workaround.

Thanks,

Justin

[Peter Grainge]

The method was devised by Pertti Metsanheimo in conjunction with Willam van Weelden when Pertti came to the forum trying to create some right to left help. Pertti then wrote up the method and I worked with him to produce the article.

I think that qualifier was put in on the basis they had not been used so they were untested. Thinking about it though the first step is to generate the output. That allows you to apply any build expression. During generation, snippets and variables get converted to straight HTML. It seems to me therefore that they should not present any problem.

I suggest you create a simple project with just three or four topics so that you can easily see what is involved in using the method anyway and, at the same time, try using snippets and variables. I'll be interested to hear about your results.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

I agree with Peter. If you do come across any issues, post back and we'll see if we can amend the method to make it work.

Greet,

Willam

[Guest]

Hi Peter and Willam,

Thanks for the quick response.

I believe you are both correct. This seems to be a non-issue with variables and build expressions. I tried a small project with Arabic and produced the output with no issues. Looks like this procedure is for reconfiguring layout after generating the output.

One point though is that I'm creating Adobe AIR browser-based help, rather than webhelp. So for example, I don't have the whskin_frmset01.htm in my output folder. I also don't have the whthost.js for the TOC.

Do you know if this procedure has been tested with Adobe AIR output? I know it doesn't work with CHM files.

Justin

[Peter Grainge]

I am not aware of it being tried with browser AIR Help. Why are you using that, what is the advantage you see over webhelp?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Not sure if there is an advantage to it. I was asked to create an AIR help project so that's what I did.

Not sure if it's all that different from a regular web help project.

[Peter Grainge]

There are two forms of AIR help, desktop and browser based. Are you sure you are creating the right one? The difference is important.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

Can you share your test project? I'd like to have a look to see whether I can do anything. No promises, AirHelp is different from WebHelp so I don't know what's possible.

Greet,

Willam