Link to RH topics from embedded Captivate slide?

[Guest]

RH10, WebHelp, Captivate 6

Hi,

I've been using RH for years, but I'm new at Captivate.

I want to have a rollover effect in a WebHelp topic, whereby the user can hover the mouse pointer over a graphic and a window will pop up. Inside the pop-up window will be hyperlinks to topics within the same WebHelp project.

My understanding so far is that I can insert a Captivate slide in WebHelp topic to achieve this. The Captivate slide would contain the background graphic, and a "rollover slidelet".

My question is, at what point do I create the hyperlinks to WebHelp topics  in the slidelet? Must I do this in Captivate, and if so how do I specify the target path of the link?

Or can I do this linking after I embed the Captivate slide and slidelet into the WebHelp project?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

While you would certainly create a slide inside a Captivate project, you don't insert a Captivate slide into a RoboHelp topic. You must publish the Captivate project to create a SWF. Then you insert the SWF into the RoboHelp topic.

I do see a fly in the ointment here. And that big ole fly is that you cannot insert a clickable object into a Slidelet. So that would likely be a non-starter. Sorry.

I think your best bet would be to try and use a Related Topics control. Then try and modify the script so it doesn't need to be clicked to activate the popup, but instead trigger the popup on mouseover.

Cheers... Rick

[Guest]

Hi Rick -- was hoping you'd be out there. It does appear that I can insert a text hyperlink on the slidelet, looking at the Properties > Format tab. This might work, but again I don't know how to create the URL so that it calls up another WebHelp topic when the SWF is embedded in a WebHelp topic.

[Captiv8r · Accepted solution]

Hmmm, for some reason I keep forgetting they added that capability to Captivate 6.

Okay then, what you have to do is consider where the Captivate movie will be (as in what folder) at the time it is presented within the WebHelp. So if you are linking to topic XXX.htm and inside RoboHelp, that topic is inside a folder named FolderOne, it's going to depend on the folder the Captivate movie is in. Often, they are inserted at the project root. So if this turns out to be the case, you would insert the following into the field:

FolderOne/XXX.htm

I'll give my theory a try and see if it works for me.

Keep in mind that the links will likely fail when you test locally unless you add the project location to the list of trusted locations for the Flash Player.

Cheers... Rick

[Guest]

Will try. And thx for the great idea about modifying the Related Topics control -- it's very flexible and looks like it will do what I've been asked to provide.

[Captiv8r]

Cool!

Okay, I just tested the Captivate method and it works as well. The only "gotcha" I saw was that it appears Captivate configures the links so that they all open in new windows. You have to specifically configure each link to open in the same window.

Cheers... Rick

[Captiv8r]

I just tested the RelatedTopics control using a mouseover event. Here is what the code looks like:

<a onmouseover="javascript:RelatedTopics.Click()">This is a link to a Related Topics control</a>

Cheers... Rick

[Guest]

Oops, I’m weak on Javascript. Can you walk me through where I would place this code. Do I first insert a script?

[Captiv8r]

Sure thing

First, insert the RelatedTopics control.

After it has been inserted, you note its name. Normally, you are able to hover the control and its name pops up in a tooltip. But if not, click to select the control and change to HTML view. There will be blocks of code, One block in green and one in blue and red. In either section you should see something like id=, Make note of the actual ID name.

Now you create a standard hyperlink. Where the path and file name would normally appear, type javascript:RelatedTopics.Click();

Note that RelatedTopics should reflect the actual name you noted earlier.

Now you click the link and change to HTML view again. Tweak it by adding the onMouseover as shown earlier.

Hopefully this helps... Rick

[Guest]

Brilliant – thank you.

[Guest]

This worked a treat – thanks for taking me through the steps. Now I need to see if there’s a way to do the same thing from an image or image map.

Mike

[Guest]

So far I have used this method successfully with hyperlinked text and with a hyperlinked image.

OK I may be pushing my luck here, but can I run the mouseover from an image map within a larger image? How would the tweaked HTML look?

Thanks,

Mike