chm will not display

[Donna_Z]

I've just started using RH7 a month ago, and gradually going through my projects to open them in RH 7 from RH 5. A few of the larger ones crashed while opening in RH7, but I rebooted and they worked fine. Today I opened a smaller project and no crash, but the chm will just not display! When I try to compile again, it tells me "Cannot compile file. It may be open in another window. Please close all HTML Help windows and try again." I closed the project and opened another previously opened project and it worked fine. When I go back to this project it compiles, but the chm just does not display. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks.
Donna

[RoboWizard]

Hi Donna

Are you sure the .CHM isn't running? If you press Alt+Tab, do you find a blue upward pointing arrow icon among the mix? If so, it means RoboHelp launched the .CHM and you cannot recompile it because it's running. (If it's running, RoboHelp cannot perform the first step, which is to delete it)

Cheers... Rick

[Donna_Z]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for responding so fast. No, there is no blue upward pointing arrow icon when I used Alt+Tab.

Is there some way I can manually delete it? (since RH thinks it's compiled).

Thanks.
Donna

[RoboColum_n_]

How about locating the CHM in Windows Explorer and deleting it there?

[Donna_Z]

Hi Colum,

I just tried deleting the .chm from Windows Explorer, it still won't generate. Here's a new twist to the problem, I copied the project to a different location (all on my C: drive), and it works fine. Can't figure it out, because all my other projects are in that original location, and seem to work fine.

Donna

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi Donna.
So your project files were previously on a network drive? If so, that will be the problem. RH uses an Access database which are well known to behave strangely occasionally when situated on a network drive. Always work on your RH source on a hard drive and backup to a network. You may say you've never had a problem running over a network but my friend Peter Grainge equates doing so to Russian Roulette.

[Donna_Z]

Hi Colum,

No, all my files have ALWAYS been on my C drive. Never had it on the network.

Donna

[tripwire45]

Bizarroid question here, Donna...are you using any versioning control for this project?

Also, as a work around, what about just moving the project to a different directory on your C drive and working with it there? From what you said before, that might be the "quick and dirty" answer to all this.

-Trip

[Donna_Z · Accepted solution]

I think I've figured it out. It seems to have something to do with the length of the files and filenames. Because when I shortened the path, it seems to work fine. So I shortened the file name and now it's working fine in the original location. Thanks to everyone who helped.

Donna

[johnmccallum]

Donna,

I'm not convinced that it had to do with the path length. Here is another idea. You will get that message from RoboHelp if your application associated with the help file has called it and the application is still open. This occurs even if you have dismissed the help window. It is an operating system thing. Changing the path would allow you to open the help from a new path. So my question is did you perhaps have the application open?

John

[Donna_Z]

John, I'm not quite sure what you meant by the application associated with RH. Internet Explorer?

Donna

[johnmccallum]

By the "application," I meant the program that your help is designed to help with. Does that make sense?

We have an application program and write a help file for it. The user of the application should be able to summon help - this can be called from either Windows or directly from the help menu of the running application. When called in the second way, the operating system marks that CHM file as being open and it will stay 'open' even when the user dismisses the help window and returns to the program. It will not close until the user closes the application. Windows will not allow that CHM file to be edited while it is in the 'open' state.

This usually isn't a problem because you work on your help file in your project folder and the actual CHM that the app calls is a copy somewhere else. But since our MO here is to integrate software testing and help authoring and I see this problem occasionally. It seemed like this might be what you were seeing.

Hope this helps.

John

[Donna_Z]

John, no my project is not integrated with the application at all. So having the application open does not affect the .chm at all.

BTW, somone had asked if I was using any versioning control on this project, and no I am not. Forgot to answer that earlier.

Donna