Link One Topic to Several

[Guest]

Here’s the situation: We have a couple of topics that have a list of holidays and the dates they fall on. Is there some way to update these lists from some single topic, so that, instead of going to two or more topics holding holiday lists, we might go to the one topic and update them all from there?

For instance, say we have as topics Backup Schedule, Production Schedule, Holiday Production Schedule and Regular Schedule. It would be a time-consuming task with the potential for error to update each of these topics individually. However, if there were some Holiday List topic that the schedule topics could draw from, we would only have to update the one topic. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Lon

[Peter Grainge]

What you are looking for is Snippets expected in RoboHelp 7.

For now, could you create a topic with the data and then create a link to it from several documents setting the Popup property?

[johnmccallum]

Lon,

What you are looking for in the existing help is called an "inline frame." Unfortunately, these are not well-behaved beasts. Their bad behaviour is a product of the fact that often the size is unknown but if you have a good idea fo the size of the topic you want to insert, I would try using the inline frame. Look that term up in your RH Help file for info on how to implement it.

John

[Peter Grainge]

There is a topic on my site about using inline frames but as John says they are not well-behaved. The settings for one browser don't work so well in another. Make an edit to the content and you may have to go through all the topics using the frame to resize it.

Try them in a test project rather than your main project.

[MergeThis]

In addition, inline frames don't get printed with the page, nor do they appear in a Printed Documentation layout.


Good luck,
Leon

[Peter Grainge]

But apart from those wrinkles...

[Guest]

"...but if you have a good idea fo the size of the topic you want to insert, ..."

Uh-oh. I think I've confused everyone, and, consequently, everyone is confusing me.

What I'm looking for is some central point (i.e., topic) where I can have a list of dates from which I can update holiday dates in other topics, along the line of:

in Date Topic, have <July 4 = Monday>
then, in Other Topic, a line would read: "Production for Monday, July 4"

BTW, Peter: Went to your website and searched for "inline frame" but got no results. Likewise with RH.

Lon

[Peter Grainge]

There is nothing that allows you to reference a datasource. That is why I suggested that the Snippets will give you that when the next version is released.

The nearest thing is iFrames, look under RoboHelp in the menu for Standard Text / iFrames. That would technically do what you want but you really do not want to go there. Aesthetically you will find, after a lot of heartache, it will be a mess.

In your example, the iFrame would contain Monday, July 4. You wouldn't be able to reformat the order as in your example.

[Guest]

Here's what we've tried this morning:

wrote a JavaScript file and put it in the main Production book to serve two sub-books. Works just fine when I click the Preview button -- I get the lists I want, with dates & hyperlinks -- but the compiled RH ignores the JS file completely ... no lists, nothing. Why does the Preview work okay, but compiled RH gives me bupkiss ... nada ... zilch?

Lon

[Captiv8r]

Hi Lon

Probably because the preview knows about the associated JavaScript file. You probably need to ensure it is added to baggage files. To do this, take a look at Snippet number 2 on this page. (It's near the bottom)

Cheers... Rick

[Captiv8r]

LOL, sorry Peter. Didn't see you standing there.

[Peter Grainge]

Did you include the js file in baggage?

[Guest]

Peter, Captiv8r,

thanx, guys! That did the trick!

lon