Merging Projects

[Guest]

The way our Help directory is structured, I may have to create a merge project, then merge a couple of others into that ... is this possible? Any problems?

thanx!
Lon

[Peter Grainge]

If you are talking about merged webhelp, I wouldn't go there. Everyone seems to hit issues with it.

[kankipati]

Hi Peter

My requirement is to create a merged webhelp and am able to do that (with the help on your site), but as you foretold I am having problems with hyperlinks between child projects. I tried the process on your site, but it is not working.

Can you help?

Thanks,

Vinay

[Peter Grainge]

With one parent and many children, cross child project links work as described.

If you have merged help within merged help, you are fighting something where to the best of my knowledge no one has won yet.

Please clarify.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[kankipati]

I have only one parent and the rest of them are children. But the cross child linking is not working.

Here's what I am doing:

I have created 2 folders: SOURCE (path: C:\Users\43533615\Desktop\source) and OUTPUT (path: C:\Users\43533615\Desktop\output).

The parent project (named 'parent') and all the child project folders (named child1, child2. etc) are saved inside the SOURCE folder.

The webhelp path of parent is: C:\Users\43533615\Desktop\output\index.htm

The webhelp path of child1 is: C:\Users\43533615\Desktop\output\mergedProjects\CHILD1\index.htm (similar for other children)

Now, I have created one link from Child1 by clicking HYPERLINK >> LINK TO >> FILE and selected the necessary file in Child2. The path in LINK TO field now shows: ../../output/mergedProjects/CHILD2/Link_to_CHILD_TWO.htm

When I generate the children first and the parent at last, these hyperlinks do not work. Am I doing something wrong. I also tried to link it to the same Link_to_CHILD_TWO.htm file from the Source folder instead of Output folder. Still the same.

Please correct me where I am doing wrong. I am using RH 9.0.1.262.

Thanks,

Vinay

[Peter Grainge]

In the Link To dropdown, you create the link to the required topic in the source files. The link is then relative between the topics in the source and remains correct in the output.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[kankipati]

I tried to link the files from source folder this time as you described (everything else intact and no other changes).

When I generate the parent and click view output, nothing comes up in the browser. It's empty.

From the output folder, I tried to open index.htm (my startpage). Still the same. I tried to open the .htm file which has the link. It opens file, but when I click the link, it fails saying '

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Vinay

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Vinay.

The fact that you suggest that the output doesn't even display when you open the start page suggests a bigger problem. Does the same happen if you open it in other browsers? If it is, can you post the path you are using to link PLUS the path of your start page from your single source layout.

[kankipati]

Unfortunately, I will not be able to check it in another browser because we are not allowed to install or try any other browser in office, except IE 8.0 which I am using now. Is there any thing else that I can check from my side. Also, here are the paths that you asked for:

Path of the link: C:\Users\43533615\Desktop\source\CHILD1\Link_to_CHILD_TWO.htm

Path of startpage: C:\Users\43533615\Desktop\output\index.htm

[Peter Grainge]

Open a topic in Rh where the link is broken. Double click that link to open the Hyperlink dialog.

Do you see the path of the link as in your reply or do you see a relative path, something like ..\CHILD1\Link_to_CHILD_TWO.htm?

You should see something like the latter.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[kankipati]

The relative path you posted is exactly what I see in the hyperlink dialog.
../CHILD1/Link_to_CHILD_TWO.htm

Also, all these links between children work fine when I check it in View mode (CTRL+W).

[Peter Grainge]

I think you cannot be generating and publishing correctly, especially as the links work locally.

Have you taken a look at the download on my site and compared what I have done with what you are doing?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Guest]

No... not Webhelp. Microsoft HTML Help.

Better?

lr

[Peter Grainge]

Pass. Someone else take this one on merged CHMs?

[Pete_Lees]

Hi, Lon,

To be clear, do you have multiple help files in different folders, and you want to merge them all together at run time? This shouldn't be a problem, provided that you register the location of the help files in the Windows registry. See this thread for details:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=65&catid=449&threadid=1401680

The TOCs in merged help files work across more than one level. So if you merge help file A into file B, and then merge file B into file C, the TOC of A will appear in C's TOC. However, this isn't the case with the indexes and full-text search. So, A's index and full-text search data will only be visible in C if you configure C so that A is merged directly into it (bypassing B).

You may find this article useful:

http://helpware.net/htmlhelp/how_to_merge.htm

Pete