Why are breadcrumbs in my child project showing the (excluded) parent project path?

[Tatu_Mbili]

I have a merged project in RoboHelp 9. When I am running just the child project from that child project's index.htm, I still show the breadcrumbs from the parent project, and users can click on that breadcrumb and access the parent pages, which they are not supposed to do.

Unfortunately, I had already set up the merged project in the structure Parent>mergedProjects>child 1 before I read Peter Grainge's piece about using the fake parent with the redirect to the childs. Is the only way to remove my parent project breadcrumbs for me to start all over again and set them up as he described? it doesn't make sense to me that the parent would be showing in the child's breadcrumbs.

Thanks for the help!

[Peter Grainge · Accepted solution]

Take a copy of a child project and save it somewhere else. Then it will function as a standalone piece of help. While it is in mergedProjects it is seeing the other content.

I don't normally use child projects in isolation but I see what you are reporting and it's not the way I believe it used to work going back to when Noah was a lad.

I will take this up with Adobe but meantime I think moving the child will work as you expect.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

I have had this project working for almost two years now and before the last move to production in April, I do not remember this happening. The problem with what you suggest is that the parent project is actually in use as well. Having two copies of the child would seem to be redundant when they would both be on the same server: double the space for this small issue? Doesn't it also mean that the breadcrumbs would again be wrong if I set it up in your style so they would still say Home>Parent>Child1 where Parent would just be that blank page?

Do you know if this is the same in RoboHelp 10? I am in the process of converting to RoboHelp 10 and would like to resolve issues now, if I possibly can.

Thanks muchly for the help!

[Peter Grainge]

It was Rh10 I tested with.

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@petergrainge

[Peter Grainge]

... and it was the same going back to Rh7.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

Thanks, Peter. What kind of nastiness will I face if I move my Parent to become a Child under your suggested structure so that it is my child2 with the current child as child1? Any suggestions as to a good way to do it that will not break the whole thing? Oh, and just to throw a little monkey wrench in it, my project is under Version Control in TFS. I am the only author though.

[Peter Grainge]

If you don't have any cross project links, you should be OK. If you do have links between the parent and child, then they will break.

If you current setup is working, then I think "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" applies.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

I have one link from the parent to the child and a back button in the child project to the parent so fixing those after a move would seem to be simple enough. It is more important that the breadcrumbs are correct than that I will have a bit of extra work as the current parent project should not be visible or indeed, accessible, to users who access the child project directly.

I will remove the project from Version Control, make the changes per your guidelines for a merged project, generate, check and then, once I see that everything is ok, put it back under Version Control. At least if I mess it up completely, I won't have far to go back!

Thanks a million for your help and I hope Adobe can clear up the breadcrumbs thing!

Helen

[Peter Grainge]

Whoah!

Changing to my method will not fix the breadcrumb problem as I indicated earlier. What it does do is make creating cross project links easier. Yours are already created.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

I understand that, Peter. Perhaps if i diagram, you will see why I think moving to your structure might work better for me. The current structure is as follows:

Community Parent

     My Child

One set of users can click on the link to Community Parent and use the entire merged project and should therefore get the breadcrumb reading Home>Community Parent>My Child. However, the other set of users go directly to My Child and should not see Community Parent in the breadcrumbs as currently they can click on it and use the back and forward links to navigate through it, even though it doesn't appear in the (still child) TOC.

What I want to do is this:

Your Parent

     Community Child

     My Child

I've decided I don't care if there is another name in the breadcrumbs that would represent Your Parent, the (invisible) redirecting page. What I would like to do is then call Community Child through Your Parent, which could link to My Child so that the breadcrumbs there would read Home>Your Parent>Community Child>My Child. The other link would go directly to My Child so that I would then end up with the breadcrumbs Home>Your Parent>My Child, according to my dilemma. I think I may have to add a conditional build tag to the TOC entry in Your Parent to completely exclude any access to Community Child from within My Child but as long as it solves the problem in the breadcrumbs, I'm ok with that, it is more important for me to block access to Community from the second set of users.

If you don't think this will do what I want, please let me know. I've been trying to wrap my head around another way to accomplish this other than your first suggestion but if there isn't one, I will explain it and beg for the extra server space.

[Peter Grainge]

Download the demo from my site and experiment with that.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

Downloaded the demo, I see the logic and structure. However, whether I launch your generated project from the Parent folder or any of the child folders, the breadcrumbs look the way I want mine to look: Home>Child1>child1 instead of Home>Parent>Child1>child1, which is what those in my project look like when launched from the Child1 folder. What am I missing in what you said above?

[Peter Grainge]

In that case it must be me having not followed correctly what you are saying. If it is working in a way you are happy with then I'm happy too.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

So back to my original question: why do my breadcrumbs say Home>Parent>Child1>Child1 when I launch just the child1 project? In the Adobe Help for merged projects, it says you can launch the child directly, bypassing the parent. The Parent is not technically in the directory path or referenced in any way in the child project, where is this breadcrumb coming from? Does it have to do with the fact that the child folder is in the mergedProjects folder and somewhere there is something referring to that? If so, can I change it?

[Peter Grainge]

It has everything to do with the fact that you are accessing the child while it is in a structure containing all the other projects. It can see them and will access them.

Yes you can open a child directly but while it is in the full structure any links to other projects will still work. What I said earlier was that it has worked like that since Rh7 at least and I will be speaking to Adobe about that.

Whilst you have not done anything extra in the child project to reference the parent, the very creation of the merge has done that.

Do you really need breadcrumbs? If you don't, then the only other thing that will fail is cross project links and obviously if you create a link to a project that you are not making available it is going to fail.

Hope that is clearer.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

Much clearer, thanks! I really need breadcrumbs. I will take multiple backups and work on a different machine, I think, in order to achieve what I need.

Thanks, Helen

[Peter Grainge]

I have gone through this again and here's the deal.

Go to my demo that you downloaded and open Child Two. Add another topic and create a link to it from the existing topic.

Regenerate and republish that project.

Open just that output whilst it is in the full structure and home will take you to the home page of the full merge.

Now copy just the output of Child Two to a location on its own. In IE when you click Home nothing happens. It cannot find the page but it does not error. In FF you will see Connecting flickering on the tab.

In both cross project links wlll return a 404 but that is to be expected.

I don't think this can be fixed other than by Adobe but I will poke around some more later.

---

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

I have changed the structure of my project to yours: redirecting Parent, child1 and child2, and for the most part, it works! I now have three small issues (at least I think they are small):

1.     When I launch the Parent, child1 and child2 both appear in the TOC on the far left. However, where the content should be in the right hand frame, is a complete subset  containing child1 (the former parent), including a TOC of only child1,  Contents, Index and Search tabs and another Search space on the right. This included TOC is also fully navigable. Then if I click into what should be the only TOC on the far left, the other one disappears, the window readjusts itself to where it should be and the extra TOC etc., are gone. How do I get child1 to stop showing its own TOC from the initial redirect?

2.     I have a link on the last page of child1 that goes to a page in child2. It doesn't want to work, even though I followed your directions to making links from one child to another and it does make the link relative once I have chosen the correct file. How do I make the link work?

3.     I can only use 756px of the display space. In child2, the breadcrumbs are inside that 756px margin. In child1, they are completely outside. Where do I change that for child1 so that the breadcrumb right margin is the same for both?

If you would rather that I start a new question for any of these, please let me know. And thanks for all your help, I did do what you said above and agree with you.

[Peter Grainge]

1. You have redirected to the startpage rather than the default topic.
2. Compare the URL with one I created. I can absolutely guarantee the method works. Post back if still stuck.
3. How are you creating the breadcrumbs? Using a placeholder or via the SSL option? Please post a screenshot.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

Sometimes I know what I'm doing in RH and sometimes I'm just the biggest null. I apologize for that in advance!

1.    Don't think my brain is wrapping around the concept of startpage versus default topic but I got it working! Yayyyyyy! Thanks!

2     My link path is ../MyChild Premium/New_MyChild/ice_cream/Have_an_IceCream.htm, which should be the same as yours, although nested a bit deeper. Is it the space in the first folder name? If so, how do I go about changing the folder name so there is no space? Global S&R in RH and then just rename the folder?

3.     I just ticked the Add breadcrumb links box in the Generate/Publish procedure. Can't post screenshot as it is proprietary at the moment.

Lol, I'm getting there! Gonna be plenty of celebration when this works, tell me where to send the champagne!

Helen

[Peter Grainge]

You'll hate me for the answer on renaming. Long click the folder name in Rh or click it and press F2 or right click and select Rename. Rh will take care of the rest. I'm not sure that is the problem though. Try it and see.

On 3, create the same problem in a new project with garbage content. You can then post that.

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@petergrainge

[Tatu_Mbili]

The only portion of the folders that I see in RH is New_MyChild/ice_cream: the ../MyChild Premium is the root folder of the child2 project and that's the one with the space in it that I'm worried about. My folder structure at this point is:

Source

     v10parent

          parent

               parent.xpj

     v10projects

          MyChild child one (folder name includes spaces)

               v10Community.xpj

          MyChild Premium (child2 project, folder name includes spaces)

               v10MyChildPremium.xpj

So the only place the folder name with spaces occurs is in this particular link.

Working on 3 for you.

BTW, every answer you give me increases my knowledge of RH so I only appreciate what you give me!

[Tatu_Mbili]

For number 3: I noticed that the default.css files were two different dates. Replaced the one with the incorrect layout by the one with the correct layout: yayyyyy, it works, breadcrumbs are where they should be on the page!

All that's left is the non-linking hyperlinks. In working to arrive at the correct number 3 above, I copied the original project, redid all the links per your instructions, they are correct, just not linking to where they should.

[Tatu_Mbili]

Peter, I quit, I'm going to be a farmer. As a former tech support person, I've heard this myself a million times but really, there is nothing wrong with my links. I have set them up over and over again following your directions, no go. On top of that, my child2 project is now missing a page, even though there are links to it in the project and there is a reference to it in the child2 TOC.

Oh, me achin' head!

[Tatu_Mbili]

18 inch error for the missing page: there was a conditional build tag there that was in very pale yellow so I didn't see it. Removed it. Page appears in output.

Still not getting the links from child1 to child2. First one is ../MyChild2/Personal_information.htm. Second is ../MyChild2/New_MyChild/have_an_ice_cream.htm.