RoboHelp 10 #IVB section in chm file missing

[Louisa_de]

Hello everyone!

I have already posted my problem in another thread but maybe it was overlooked.

We use a chm file complied with RoboHelp to create a dll containing the context-sensitive text. In order to do that the compiler has to read the IVB section which matches the header file of the project.

With RoboHelp 9 this was never a problem, but with RoboHelp 10 now the chm file no longer contains an IVB section. Therefore the dll compilation fails.

We have tried creating a new header file, importing an old one, leaving it blank, stuffing it full of IDs.

The only thing that works is converting an old RoboHelp 9 project to RoboHelp 10.

But we should be able to start a RH 10 project from scratch and still have an IVB section, shouldn't we?

Unfortunately even theAdobe  Support was unwilling to help and wouldn't even let me know whether it's a bug or whether we're doing something wrong.

If anybody has any ideas on how to fix this issue, please reply!

Thank you very much

Lu

[Peter Grainge]

Using Rh to create a DLL? That's a new one on me so please explain.

Also I search "IVB section" in Google and didn't get any joy?

"We have tried creating a new header file, importing an old one, leaving it blank, stuffing it full of IDs." Again, you have lost me. I mostly work with WebHelp but I know something of CHMs and don't know what you mean here.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Amebr]

I think the #IVB section is internal to a chm from memory. I don't remember ever seeing it in the project at all, so maybe the dll process is somehow decompiling the chm? Anyhow, it sounds like a very specialised process.

I found this unoffical spec:

http://www.nongnu.org/chmspec/latest/Internal.html#IVB

It says the section pretty much corresponds to the [ALIAS] section of the hhp file, which in my old projects references the .ali file. I don't think this can be used directly how you wish, though.

Assuming the IVB section is no longer populated (I only have an old version of RH), then I would assume  RH has some other method for including this information in the CHM file. You would need to get a tool that lets you have a look at the internal structure of the chm to determine what file you need to look at, for example FAR (www.helpwaregroup.com).

Another possibility is that the mappings have been lost and you need to remap your header file to topics in RH and recompile.

HTH,

Amber

[Louisa_de]

Amebr,

thank you!

Your last sentence brought us on the right track.

It seems

a) that the mappings got lost somehow and

b) that having unmapped IDs leads to the IVB section being skipped in the chm.

For some reason deleting the unused map IDs did not solve the problem.

So we went the other way around and mapped all the IDs we have and now the IVB section in the chm is back and everything works again.

I wonder whether I will ever understand the wonders of RoboHelp!

Best regards

Lu

[Amebr]

Glad you solved it. Sometimes these things just happen.

[Louisa_de]

I seem to be writing very confusing texts.

Of course we don't compile a dll using RoboHelp, we use the chm to compile a dll.

The compiler needs to be able to look at this IVB stuff (basically the mapped IDs) to compile the dll and if it's not there, compilation fails.

The problem with the #IVB is not new, see here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/5558342#5558342

DOn't worry about not being able to help! Thanks anyway, Peter!

Btw. we are hoping to move to WebHelp soon (it's finally on the roadmap - yay!), at the moment there's no time. I'm sure I will benefit from your vast amount of knowledge of creating WebHelp then.