Hyperlinks and Image Maps switching to 'Remote URL' destination

[cnevin]

Hi everyone,

For some reason, I am having problems with a lot of my image maps and text hyperlinks having been converted to some form of short hand and now having incorrect destinations.

When I hover the cursor over them, they now show the message:

"Image Map [area1] [javascript:void(0);]"
"Hyperlink [javascript:void(0);]"

instead of, for example,

"Image Map [Contours_tab.htm]"

"Hyperlink [Contours_tab.htm]"

(where area1 is also 2, 3, 4 etc)

The Hyperlink/Image Map dialog Select Destination dropdown field has changed from "All Folders" (or whatever folder it was) to the "Remote URLs" (of which there is only one used in the project anyway, an email address).

When I preview/Ctrl+W them, some of the hyperlinks are fine and popup or jump to the appropriate topics. Others display an error message which states,

"The value of the property 'BSSCPopup' is null or undefined, not a function object".

When I compile and open the Help, so far the links have all gone to the correct topics (which is a huge relief!).

However, I have to redo the hyperlink if I want it to show correctly on hover, or open the Hyperlink/Image Map dialog on the correct topic file. This, as you can imagine, is a complete PITA.

Three questions:

• Has anyone else had this problem?
• Is there a fix to convert the Image Map links back to their original destination?
• Does this mean my project has corrupted?

I am especially worried about the last one, so any help is appreciated.

cheers,

Christina

[Peter Grainge]

Christina

There is now one thread but I am not sure if it contains your edits.

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[cnevin]

Thank you.

cheers,

Christina

[Peter Grainge]

What version of Rh?

Are you producing WebHelp?

Where is your project stored?

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[cnevin]

Hi,

I am on version 9.0.0.228.

Yes, the Primary Layout is MS HTML Help.

The project is stored on my computer D drive (so not over a network).

cheers

Christina

[Peter Grainge]

That indicates you do not have any of the Rh9 patches applied. See my site for details.

MS HTML help is not WebHelp. You are creating CHMs. That rules out one concern I had.

Do you have a backup that you can test?

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[Peter Grainge]

Sorry, you will find details of the patches under Using RoboHelp 9.

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[cnevin]

Thanks, I shall add the patches.

Yes, the backup from a month ago is fine. But (unsurprisingly) I don't really want to lose a month of work!

cheers

Christina

[Peter Grainge]

In the Topic List you can add a column Modified Date and you can sort by that column. By looking at the topics modified in the last month, you could identify the topics that do not contain images with this problem. Create a copy of the backup and using Windows Explorer to copy good topics in.

It's not a perfect solution but if you cannot fix the rogue topics any other way, this will minimise the pain of getting some work back.

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[cnevin]

Thank you for the work around.

cheers

Christina

[cnevin]

Hi everybody,

I am currently having this problem again.

I was having the problem of the popups only displaying in the top left corner again, so ran the Popup Placement Fixer.jsx script. This solved the popup problem, but wiped the popups/links to a lot of my graphics. This has happened twice in the last week.

Does anyone know if Adobe is aware of this popup problem? And are doing anything about it?  Does anyone have a way of changing the script so it doesn't rewrite my links to  "[javascript:void(0);]"? I am using RoboHTML 10 and am up to date. This is about a fifth of the way through a new, very big project, so I don't want to have to redo my graphics every time I have to correct the popup problem using the script.

Stressed out,

Christina

[sundances]

Hello Peter,

I am having the same problem as what Christina experience this 2 yrs ago. But this was unanswered online here and 1) I'm using Robohelp 10.

2) Project is stored on local PC directory. Suddenly when I reopen the project, RH10 has switched the "Link to:" to "javascript:void(0);" and the "Select destination (file or URL)" to "Remote URLs". And this has caused problem to the Topic.html file in all of the Project I have that uses the same Topic.html file.

3)The backup project file also points to the same settings, which is "Remote URLs", when I open it in my attempt to recover from backup. Backup file was created sometimes ago (2 months old). 

4) On the other hand, the original WebHelp Preview file generated earlier does not do this, it points to the correct "Hyperlink Display in auto-sizing popup" setting and file and display the right image. Note that I have not deployed this to the server for production yet. So I cannot recover this from the backup project file.

5) I notice that this could have something to do with syncing the "resources". Does this have anything to do with this problem?

Questions:

i) How and why did this happen so that I can avoid doing the same mistake again in the future if I caused this accidentally? 

ii) How do I fix this and also to syncing the "resources" as well so that the backup file also will be fixed?

iii) How do I check with RH 10 patch version is installed on my PC?

Trust that you have the solution to this problem so that we can avoid/fix it in future. Thank you for your solving this problem in advance.

Best regards,

Sundance

[sundances]

Sorry Christina, I meant to add into the thread and send my email/question to Peter Grainge‌ on this same posted issue.

Thank you.

Sundance

[Peter Grainge]

I didn't resolve the cause for Christina, it was more a case of helping her fix the problem.

Please add some screenshots so that I can see what you are seeing in (2) above.

What do you mean by the WebHelp Preview file?

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[sundances]

Hello Peter,

Sorry for the delay.  Here are the examples of the # 2) puzzles. I initially had it, the "Link to" to "absence.htm" on "Display in auto-sizing popup" and it pointed to "Select destination (file or URL)" set to "All Folders" in the original projects, all projects that have this same Topic. But when I reopened one of the project again, the "Link to" has changed to "javascript.void(0);" and the "Select destination (file or URL)" has changed to "Remote URLs".

So I tried to recover it from other backup projects (different project names but use the same Topic), but they are all also suddenly has changed to "Remote URLs". When I checked/opened the HTM file associated with the Topic in my local directory, it is correctly pointing to the correct popup file, "absence.htm". So the popup file has been detached from the link/broken link.

I did not know how this happened because the backup projects that I tried to use is completely located somewhere else and I just copied it onto my local drive.  Is this the Robohelp that is installed on my local PC or something else happened? I hope you can tell me how I can avoid from happening again, please, and how I can change it back to how it was originally set up before that will be a big help. How do I change it back to recover the backup project as well? Do I need to reinstall RH? I have no clue how this happened.

Thanks very much.

Best regards,

Sundance

[Peter Grainge]

I'm guessing you have replied by email. Images can only be posted direct to the forum. Please post the images direct.

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[Peter Grainge]

OK. The images were just being slow to download. Let me take a look.

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[Peter Grainge]

So I tried to recover it from other backup projects (different project names but use the same Topic), but they are all also suddenly has changed to "Remote URLs". When I checked/opened the HTM file associated with the Topic in my local directory, it is correctly pointing to the correct popup file, "absence.htm". So the popup file has been detached from the link/broken link.

So the file is still there but Rh is not seeing it. Have you tried deleting the CPD file and reopening the project?

I did not know how this happened because the backup projects that I tried to use is completely located somewhere else and I just copied it onto my local drive.  Is this the Robohelp that is installed on my local PC or something else happened? I hope you can tell me how I can avoid from happening again, please, and how I can change it back to how it was originally set up before that will be a big help. How do I change it back to recover the backup project as well? Do I need to reinstall RH? I have no clue how this happened.

How are you copying to the backup location? Windows Copy, Zip file etc?

Is there any source control at play here?

It could be your installation but please respond to the above first.

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[sundances]

Hi Peter, 

1) Recovery from backup attempt is by opening the .xpj file, which is from the backup folder (i.e. from Robohelp: File > Open > backupfilename.xpj.  And when I open this backup project, go to the same topic and open it, and it also has gone wrong while this backup project was a copy of old date of Nov 2014.  The topic was working before up (both in current project file and backup file) until 3 weeks ago, recently.

2) I will check CPD file. I'm not familiar with this file but will check this first.

3) I did not copy the topic.htm file by copying over the windows explorer. I just open it from windows explorer and it looks good. But when I open it via Robohelp, the auto-sizing link is broken. The backup project folder is located on the server so I do not copy the project folder, just try to open it via Robohelp like # 1). I had not opened it before this time.

Many thanks, Peter. I will get back to you on # 2).

Sundance

[sundances]

Hi Peter,

I tried the option # 2) you suggested. Deleted the .cpd file and reopen the project (both original backup and the working project .xpj files via Robohelp10) and they are still on Remote URLs. 

Does this have anything to do with "Sync Link Resources" or "Manage Resources"?  I was wondering if this "Sync Link Resources" caused the problem? My efforts have been trying to track back what changes I have done to see if any caused this problem and so I have lessons learned not to do it again.

Hope you can help please.

Many thanks.

Best regards,

Poppy

[sundances]

Hi Peter,

Sorry, I was off last week.

We tried the #2 option but it's no luck. The "Select destination (file or URL) dialog window" still points to the incorect destination folder, "Remote URLs".

Did this happen because of the "Sync Link Resources"?

Thanks much.

Best regards,

Sundance

[Peter Grainge]

I don't think the linked resources are the cause of this problem as if there was a bug there, we would see more people having this issue. Whilst you may not be alone, it's not a common problem.

1] What is linking this problem to Resource Manager in your mind?

2] When you add an image to a topic from Resource Manager, how exactly are you doing it?

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