How do you arrange the RH7 pods?

[Alan_Davidson]

I'm trying to arrange the pods (moveable-windows) in RoboHelp 7 so that
they are convient for my workstyle. The help has virtually no information on
how to do this.

I would like the topics list and the link view to be two tabs on the same window,
which is how they were situated in RH 6 and before, but have been unsuccessful.
By default, the topics list and the user-defined variables list share a short, wide
window at the bottom. But I want the topics list to be large, the size of the default
links view, and I want to be able to drag topics from that list into the index or
TOC pod. I have successfully pulled the topic list away from the
user-defined variables list but I can't get it to join with the link view window.
Rather, it steals half the space from the link view window meaning that I have to
grag the border and drag it to make one or the other of the windows a usable
size.

Can anyone point me to some sort of information on how to customize these things?

[RoboWizard]

Hi Alan_Davidson

Basically you click and drag, close and open, combine and whatnot to arrange things like you want. Once you get them arranged, you may click File > Save Environment and save the file as a .RHS file.

If it will help any, I've uploaded a file for you that arranges things as close as I can get them to the older workflow. You may download it by opening this link and saving the .ZIP file. You will then need to extract the .RHS file and save it somewhere. After you get it extracted and saved, you then click File > Load Environment and navigate to where the .RHS file exists.

See if that comes close to offering what you would like.

Sincerely... Rick

[Alan_Davidson]

Thanks very much Rick,

I think your environment will be a big improvement over the default for my style of working. But, I would still love to see some documentation or a tutorial on how to arrange the pods. I tried all sorts of dragging-and-dropping techniques but couldn't even get close to what I wanted to achieve.

Here is another question: In previous versions, you could move the cursor focus from window to window by way of keyboard commands. I haven't found a way to do this in version 7. Does anyone know anything about this?

And (a grip), I am very frustrated to find that if you double-click a topic in the Project Manager pod, the cursor
does not move to your newly opened topic in the HTML editor. Rather you have to additionally click in the editor.
Pressing the Enter key does move the focus to the editor, but since I haven't found a way to move the focus to
the Project Manager by way of the keyboard, that behavior isn't of much use.

Thanks again,

-Al

[JBennettTX]

Alan, I had problems trying to arrange my pods, too, until I figured out what the visual clues mean. When you drag a pod by its title bar, you see a gray box. As you drag the box around, it changes shape to show where and how it will land when you release the mouse.

Floating box = free-floating (undocked) pod
Box snaps to half of a pod = pod docks above, below, or to one side of the target
Box snaps to whole pod and has a tab at the bottom = pod docks as a tab on the target pod

Sometimes it's tricky to find the right spot for the result you want. Sometimes you have to drag a few pods out of the way first.

I haven't found any built-in keyboard commands for switching pods, but you can assign a shortcut to a pod.

1. Right-click the toolbar and choose Customize.
2. Click the Keyboard tab.
3. Select Pods in the Category list.
4. Select a pod, and assign a shortcut to it.

That changes the focus to the pod. Opens the pod, too, if it was closed. That's not exactly what you're looking for, but it might serve as a fix

JMB

[Amebr-ke0mH4]

quote:

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Originally posted by: Alan_Davidson
I'm trying to arrange the pods (moveable-windows) in RoboHelp 7

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Completely off-topic, I keep reading these threads as "I'm trying to arrange my iPods..." and wondering how and why you would arrange one.

[Peter Grainge]

There's a Captivate movie and other information if you follow this link.

Scroll down to October.

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/robohelp/