Topic Positioning

[rds0121]

We are evaluating RoboHelp and are wondering if the product will allow us to position to a subtopic from one of our existing webpages? We want to place a help icon on our webpages and the help position to the correct place. Is this possible?

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi rds0121 and welcome to the RH forums. Can I clear some things up with you before I answer. Is your "website" developed in RH or some other tool? Not that it really matters but the answer will be different. Also by "sub-topic" do you mean a particular spot in a RH topic or the topic itself? Finally are you producing your help in Webhelp output format? If you can provide a bit more detail I'm sure we can help you get the right answer.

[rds0121]

Thanks for your quick response. Our website is developed using IBM Websphere with Java. We are open to using the output format you recommend. I'll give you an example of what we are trying to do:

We have an Accounts Payable system. Within Accounts Payable, there are different modules, for example, Invoice Entry, Invoice Lookup, Payment Terms, etc. We want an Accounts Payable main topic with the modules underneath. Also, if the user is on the Invoice Lookup page and clicks the help icon, we want RH to position to that topic in the help.

Is this doable?

[RoboColum_n_]

Thanks for the detail. It was very helpfiul. OK. To link to the top of a topic you just link to the filename (e.g. topic1.htm). If you need to need to link to a particular place in the file you have to add a bookmark (use the Insert - Bookmark menu item or toolbar icon). Then when you link you link to the bookmark (e.g. topic1.htm#bookmark). If you use webhelp as your output this will be fine.

As an aside, in your Invoice Lookup page example, have you considered using context sensitive help? This is a feature that allows the user to use the F1 key to access a help topic directly linked to the webpage. To do this is a little more involved but quite easy once you get the hang of things. Try looking in the RH Help TOC for this (about two thirds of the way down) as there is a lot of detail there on how it works.

[Peter Grainge]

Can I just add something to Colum's reply?

It sounds like you are writing very long topics with lots of sub topics in each one and you want to jump down to those. If that is the case, it would be much better to break it down a bit into bite size chunks.

[rds0121]

Thanks Coloum and Peter. Peter, I think you are right. I will keep that in mind when creating Topics and Suptopics.