Turn the pages, scroll trought the book via button

[suw-VcO4oy]

Hello,

we would like to introduce two buttons to easily move through the content of a book without using the active-X library providing the previous and next button from the click sequences. The reason is, that we want to avoid the roll out of the active-X library HHActiveX.dll to each client of our customers.

Does anybody know a solution?
Thanks for help.
Uwe

[Captiv8r]

Hi suw

Is this for a compiled .CHM file? If so, there is a way to enable toolbar buttons that do this. If the output is WebHelp, you need to know that ActiveX is not used. I say this because many folks automatically assume ActiveX is used here also when they run WebHelp locally and see the yellow information bar. What is really going on is JavaScript is being sensed.

Cheers... Rick

[suw-VcO4oy]

Hi Rick,

yes, we work with compiled chm-files. May I find the answer to my question on your homepage? I just had a quick look but not the time to explore all. That's what I will do tomorrow. I am currious about getting your solution.

Bye and thanks in advance, Uwe

[Captiv8r]

Hi again

You might take a look here: Click here

I think what you are looking for is called "Previous and Next" buttons. You have to do a bit of hex math, but you can use Windows Calculator for that. Unfortunately you will also probably have to tweak the ProjectName.HHP file outside of RoboHelp to accomplish it too. It's a feature of Microsoft .CHMs.

Unfortunately that's about all I can locate on it at the moment. I'll dig further and if I come up with anything I'll be happy to post.

Cheers... Rick

[suw-VcO4oy]

Hi Rick,

that helps a bit. Your links is very useful and I was able to manipulate the buttons. Thanks for that hint.

So far I had three choices for the buttons:
0x4 Back, 0x8 Foreward, 0x80 Foreward, 0x100 Back, 0x200000 TOC Next and 0x400000 TOC Prev.
The first two are just for moving trough the history buffer. The next two buttons should do want I intened them to do, but I just can see them, they do not work proper. The last two buttons I even can't see within my application, but from their names they should be the best choice. I guess that the installed HHActiveX.dll does overrule these settings. I will start more investigations tomorrow and check, if an unregistering will help.

Bye, Uwe

[suw-VcO4oy]

Hi Rick,

meanwhile I checked a run where I unregister the dll before. There is no change. I also checked the restrictions coming with using binary TOC but also I can not work out any new situation. Even a new demo project runs in the same manner. I will stop my investigations here until I get some new ideas.

Thanks, Uwe

[suw-VcO4oy · Accepted solution]

Hi to all,

I found out a solution by myself: The reason, why the buttons to navigate trought the table of contents have been disapeared meanwhile on most online help systems is probably that it is easy to navigate via Arow Up or Down and Enter-Button, if the content part on the left has the focus. It's a shame, but I didn't know this before.

So it is more a question to train the users, which is in our case possible, because we have a very closed group of users.

[johnmccallum]

Uwe,

If you still haven't gotten the Previous and Next buttons to work, it may be that RoboHelp is removing them. RH never supported this and, as Rick said, you need to tweak the .hhp file outside of RoboHelp. Then you need to compile outside of RH, too. And you need a binary TOC.

The hex math in the .hhp is easy - (you don't need no stinkin' calculator) - just put a 6 in front of the button definition.

Open the .hhp in WordPad and find the [Windows] section,

locate your main window,

bullet] find the square bracketed initial position,

The button definition is just before it. So edit "0xc300e,[125,40,975,720]" by inserting a 6 after the 0x.

Now every time you compile with RoboHelp it will erase this digit. Rick has a way, in his Tips and Tricks file, of tweaking the project to make this stick but it requires Microsoft Access so I haven't ever used it. I just compile with Help Workshop.

This will get the buttons working.

John

[suw-VcO4oy]

Hello John,

thanks for your advice. I did not know until now that Help Workshop is for free from MS but I was looking for a solution to create a batch compile process outside Robohelp too and as far as I know, this is possible with hhc.exe aswell.

So I will start to explore that tool after my week off and hope to shoot two flys with one shoot (free translation of a german idiom).