Robohelp Using Websphere App Server

[Guest]

Had a question about deploying context sensitive webhelp on a websphere app server. Our developers were playing with getting the context sensitive help files integrated and tried to compile the help as a war file. They got a message that the eHelp.xml file is referencing “ehelpopt.dtd” but did not see it in the list of files. I think they deleted the ehelp.xml file to get it to complie. A. what are the implications of this B. what is the proper way to deploy Robohelp on an ibm websphere app server? Thanks in advance!

[Linux Rules]

Hello dcfergs -

Ummmm, in this case there is no ".dtd" file (dtd=data type description). The "eHelp.dtd" in the eHelp.xml file is description of a file which in your case does not exist. The eHelp.xml file is generated in RH by default. It is essentially a "boiler plate" with the default dtd file called "ehelpopt.dtd" which you COULD create if you wanted some custom stuff. Before you delete the eHelp.xml file, open it in a text editor and see if it could mess up your generated Help.

When building the WAR file, ignore that message. You can also try leaving off the "-i" switch when generating the WAR file (if it is on) and see if that helps.

Regards,
gewb

[Guest]

gewb,

Thanks for your help! Maybe this will at least help get the war file generated correctly. Just wondering if you have any tips for deploying help in a Websphere environment. Should compiling as a war file and hosting in Websphere have any negative impact on calling out the help files?

Thanks again,

dcfergs

[Linux Rules]

Hello dcfergs -

I'm not qualified to answer your question about WebSphere as I have only limited experience with it. However, it doesn't "behave" much differently from other types of server services. Your WAR file is just a ZIP file with a manifest (you can view your files directly in PKZIP) and that WAR gets deployed (decompressed) to the server. If you coded your Help paths correctly there should be no problem making context sensitive calls to Help.

Regards,
gewb

[HKabaker]

My developers don't want to deal with it. They asked me to delete it before I submit the package.

My stuff runs in WebSphere.
Because they are building a WAR file they prefer to get the whole thing, rather than just changed files.

Other than eHelp.xml, I'm not aware of any special problems.

Harvey