Chrome doesn't display content?

[Guest]

I'm using the TCS 3.5 version of RoboHelp, a.k.a. RoboHelp 9. Chrome looks like it's version 16? There are other versions being used, though.

We almost went crazy yesterday, because my boss followed my instructions for turning her project into WebHelp, and it came up empty. Literally. No left nav table of contents, no search, no text, nada. Just the skin. And the skin was a slightly different color, and the spacing was funky. After a few hours of hair-pulling, having others walk through the process and generate RoboHelp just fine, we found out her default browser was Chrome. So I pulled her output off our fileshare, and opened it in Chrome, Firefox, and Explorer. The last two were fine. But Chrome was empty, and the skin didn't look right. It looked fine on the other two browsers.

So, what do we do? Is there some way to make RH Chrome-friendly, the way you can add Mark of the Web? Or are we just SOL, and Chrome and RH don't play well together?

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

Does Chrome display it correctly from a Web Server? For example, does the link below work in your boss' Chrome browser?

Click here to view

I seem to recall that Chrome has issues with WebHelp from any HAT because of the framesets. But only when you attempt to view locally. It's a security thing. So is Mark of the Web. But that's only applicable to Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7, 8 or 9 within the day! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Guest]

Hmm, interesting. I can't use her Chrome, since she's working from home today, but I called it up in mine.

Topics, but no ToC present, and the colors are substantially different. And I typed "WebHelp" into Search, and it doesn't work. The only difference is that you have topic content, which we couldn't get, even though the Topics look just fine in RoboHelp.

I suspect the answer is that we're just going to have to warn people about Chrome...

Thanks,

Jane

[Peter Grainge]

Try this link using Chrome. http://www.grainge.org/demos/bbair/

No I don't think the answer is to warn people. I suspect the answer is that you are trying to view the help locally and that does not work with Chrome. It has to be on a server, which is why Rick posed the question.

Put your help on a server and see what happens.

There is more about the problem on my site, plus a solution for running it locally.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Hey__kid]

I've hit this problem - no left pane navigation in Chrome. Sigh.

I've tried Captiv8r's link and got... no left pane navigation in Chrome. Sigh.

I tried Peter's link. I got left pane navigation (nothing open by default under 'Contents' but it will open on click) but is the answer to my woes in that 'help'?

Basically, a straight question seeking a straight answer: do I need to upgrade to v9 and hey presto, everything is fixed?

[Peter Grainge]

Chrome was not supported until RoboHelp 9 but I cannot guarantee that will fix your issues. It should but I have no way of knowing if other issues might also be at play. Best solution to be certain is to download the trial of RoboHelp 9 to a non-production machine and see what happens. I suspect all will be OK but, as stated, cannot guarantee it.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Hey__kid]

Well, I'd hoped for a copper-bottomed guarantee but I'll take the sage guidance gratefully. Cheers.

[Guest]

Hi all,

Just for the record: WebHelp generated with RH9 demo version still does not display locally with Chrome (v. 20). Sad, because Chrome now has a significant browser market share, and my company has many customer sites where WebHelp has to be deployed locally...

[Peter Grainge]

Can those sites not deploy the help to a web server rather than install it on each user's PC?

If not, there are workarounds on my site. See Snippets.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

Peter,

Thanks for your reply.

I know the proper way to go is to deploy the help system on a Web server - only at some customer sites, that can't be done. Also, I understand even with this solution, there are still a number of issues with WebHelp and Chrome (index topic popups not displaying, search results messing up with the top of the search pane...).

Anyway, I'll look into HM2Go, as suggested on your site (I knew of the "--allow-file-access-from-files" workaround - and also knew we just could not use it at customer sites).

Thanks again for your help.

[rlauriston]

We have the same problem. One of the developers investigated and figured out the problem is that Chrome does not render RoboHelp-generated .htm files because of the DOS/Windows-style CR/LF line breaks.

So I'm going to update my build script to post-process the .htm files with dos2unix or the like.

I previously raised the CR/LF issue with Adobe support when I had trouble checking RoboHelp output into CVS. They said they'd add UNIX-style line feeds as a feature request.

[Peter Grainge]

It is very well documented on the web that the problem with webhelp displaying locally is because of the use of framesets. Snippets on my site describes the workarounds.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[rlauriston]

Hmm, OK, actually our problem is different, I just didn't read carefully enough.

[Hey__kid]

Back again!

So, I put the lines of code from Peter's site right at the very top of the pile of declarations, just nestled under the WebHelp 5.10.006 comment. Copied it over to the local folder, hit the index.html and Chrome just went into a flutter - blank screen, and the 'Stop'/'Reload page' button just flickered between the 'Stop' cross icon and the rotating arrow, 'Reload'; flickered really quickly like the poor browser was having a fit until I did the decent thing and put it out of its misery.

Note: this was on my C drive. Would that code change, sitting on a server, actually make any odds? I have to ask here because I don't want to annoy the already annoyed tech-heads who would have to make that simple little copy and paste.

Or, with the passage of time, have we got any kind of robust solution in place? Upgrade to Robo v10? Another snippet of code? Anything at all? I'm open to anything at all that will fix this. Thanks in advance.

[Peter Grainge]

If you mean the line of code I think you do, that relates to making the TOC appear on the server. Running Chrome locally is a separate issue.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Hey__kid]

Fast, and thank you.

Okay, some doughnuts and a 'pretty please' might be in order!

Much appreciated.

[Peter Grainge]

Count me in for one of those doughnuts!

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge