Merged Project Problem

[Jared Hess]

* RH 6 on Vista
* Compiled HTML Help project

I have a large set of compiled HTML Help projects that I'm trying to merge together. The master project is very large (about 5000 topics), then there are about ten other projects that are merged into the master project's contents (.hhc) file. I have verified that all the merged .chms exist in the same output directory. However, when I click on most of the links to the sub projects from the master TOC, the help browser cannot find the .htm page and gives this error:

"This program cannot display the webpage"

How can I fix this? I've tried re-inserting the merged .chm files many times into the TOC. But I think something is wrong with my project because I have another similar project for our next version that merges fine. Yet investigating the .hhc files, I don't see anything different between the two.

I've also created a smaller test master project with a single project and was able to merge fine.

[Fly_Molo]

After you've compiled the master project, open its HHP file and see what path is displayed under the [MERGE FILES] section (it should be at the end of the file). Is this the correct path from the master to the slave projects?

It's my opinion that you should be able to specify a relative path here, but RoboHelp always inserts an absolute path.

Lucas

[Jared Hess]

Thanks for the reply Lucas. I managed to temporarily fix the problem on my own, but yes, the problem has to do with absolute paths pointing to chm files that don't exists. Meaning the pathways were incorrect. The .hhp file correctly had .chm files without any pathway listed too, but it also incorrectly had absolute paths to directories that didn't exist or those directories if they did exist didn't contain the .chm files.

My question now is how does RH populate the .hhp file? Where is that information coming from? I believe this is the root source of the problem.

You see, I was able to temporarily fix this by closing down the project, deleting the absolute paths from the .hhp file, reopening the project in RH, and then regenerating the .chm output. When I did this immediately after fixing the .hhp file It would correctly merge the files--that one time. Later, when I tried it again, the mistaken absolute paths showed up again.

[Phil_Wells]

I've seen this one before and it may be related to the known bug that RH does not overwrite files in the SSL output folder.

If you have older versions of the sub-projects in the output folder that have not been overwritten, then RH is trying to link to topic's that might not exist in the output - hence the error message.

Make sure your links are valid to the imported files in the main RH directory. If they are, delete the files from the SSL output directory and regenerate.

If this works then what I generally do is set the sub-projects to output directly to the output SSL of the master project sub directory. This means sub-projects with minor updates automatically get included in the output.

The only time I re-import a sub project into the main RH directory is when its had a bit more than a minor update.

[Fly_Molo]

This is just my observation, so take it with a grain of salt--I think RoboHelp rebuilds the .HHP at compile from its .CPD database file every time there is a change in the project. Further it rebuilds it at every compilation when the project is built from the command line. If you open up the CPD database in MS Access you will find that the merged project information is stored with the absolute path (I can't recall the name of the particular table in the database, but you get the idea). I've changed the data in the CPD file, but RoboHelp will write over your changes.

You may want to check out this thread, people discuss a few workarounds, from registering the slave CHM to writing scripts to automatically change the merge path. Maybe it will give you a few ideas. If you make any breakthroughs let us know.

Lucas

[JimTS]

Tried to access the specified thread and got sent back to the Adobe forums page...any idea if there's a current thread with the workaround info?

Gandalf

*******************

You may want to check out this thread, people discuss a few workarounds, from registering the slave CHM to writing scripts to automatically change the merge path. Maybe it will give you a few ideas. If you make any breakthroughs let us know.

[Captiv8r]

Hi Jim

The thread is from nearly two years ago. Forum software has been upgraded in that time and the link is no longer valid. Sorry, but I'm unsure of exactly what the thread was referring to. You may wish to utilize the search function of these forums to try and locate it.

Cheers... Rick

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[Jared Hess · Accepted solution]

Thanks both of you. Lucas, opening up the CPD inside Access and removing the many absolute pathway items from the MergeCompiledFileList seems to have fixed this problem. Thanks again.