RH9 - Can I restore layouts in "Single Source Layouts" pod from .ssl files?

[Jared Hess]

RH 9 (latest)

Windows 7 x64

Due to some corruption somewhere in our main help project that prevented me from generating layouts using the RoboHelp command line (rhcl.exe), I deleted my .xpj file and .cpd file, and then recreated the .xpj project file from the .hhp file. This is the recommended fix to get things back to normal that I did two years ago when I got this same error. (For info, see Command line generation errors in log. How do I fix this?)

However, as expected, all my single source layouts are now missing from the Single Source Layouts pod. Is there a way to recreate the single source layouts from the .ssl files so they appear back in the pod with their previous settings? Like a way to re-import then into the project? I have 36 individual ssls just for printable output alone that I spent creating all day last Friday (1 per chapter), I really do NOT want to manually recreate them.

A related question is, where does RH store the link between xpj and ssl layouts? Because when I checked the xpj inside Notepad++ prior to deleting it, there weren't any references to the individual single source layout files there; I don't understand how deleting an xpj file removes references to the ssls when the .ssl files obviously still exist in the project folder.

[Jared Hess]

I'll reply to my own post. If I choose the same ssl type and give it the exact same name it seems to latch back onto the file, so this isn't as bad as I thought. But still... a way to import multiple ssls from .ssl files back into a project would be very nice.

[Peter Grainge]

I'm not at a Rh machine to check where the link is stored but this should work.

Move the old layouts from the project.

Recreate layouts with the same character perfect names. Leave default settings.

With Rh closed, open them in a text editor. Do the same with the old files

and copy the content across.

Backups everywhere of course.

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Just for the people among us who like to dive into source files: You can update the rhlayout.apj file manually to get them back as well. Don't forget to trash the CPD.

Kind regards,

Willam

[Jared Hess]

Thanks. I figured that out as well yesterday when it happened again.
Restoring the rhlayout.apj file from my backup made it so I didn't have to retype each layout filename.