RH7 TOC books don't open in Firefox

[Alan_Davidson]

I just upgraded from RoboHelp 6 to 7. The first thing I did after the upgrade was to generate my Webhelp project. I wanted to check that the output was acceptable. In Mozilla and IE, the output is fine. When the help opens, the book containing my default topic is open in the TOC and all the other books open and close when I click them.

But in the Firefox, all the TOC books are closed when the help first opens. None of the books will open until I click the book containing my default topic. After I open that book, the others open as they should.

I don't have this problem with the help I generated this morning before I upgraded.

Any ideas as to what's causing this?

[Peter Grainge]

Not a problem that I have seen anyone report. Open one of the sample projects or create a new one with a few topics. See if you get the same issue there.

[kath33]

This is a problem that I have also encountered. I actually posted a message about this but I wasn't as clear as you in my explanation! Anyway, we have found how to solve this problem:
You need to modify the following file: whthost.js, line 272, enter « gsTP=null; » just after « sHTML+=" ». Therefore: sHTML+="markBook("+nIdx+") needs to be changed to: sHTML+="gsTP=null;markBook("+nIdx+").
It should work.
However, we have noticed another problem in Firefox and IE: there is no synchronization of the TOC with the navigation. I mean that if you change page or book, the highlight in the TOC (indicating where you are exactly in the TOC) won't move according to the pages visited. Have you noticed this problem? We could not find a solution.

[Alan_Davidson]

Thank you very much (Katherine/Kathy?), I'll give that a try.

I didn't notice the other problem yet, because I've just gotten started with this version. Have you posted that problem? If so, what was the date of the post? Did you try turning off the breadcrumbs? (I'm assuming it's possible to do that.)

-Al Davidson

[Alan_Davidson]

I tried modifying the whthost.js file, and that does fix the problem, mostly. But, I wouldn't call this "The Answer" for two reasons:

1. The TOC doesn't show the location of the default topic when the help loads in the browser. This is not terrible, but it would be nice to fix this problem also and might be related to the other problem that kath33 noticed.

2. whthost.js is an output file rather than a source file, which means you would have to edit it every time you generate.

I'm hoping somebody might have a solution that can be applied to the source.

-Al Davidson

[Captiv8r]

Hi Al

You may modify the source in the following location. (Assuming a default install)

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 7\RoboHTML\WebHelp5Ext\template_stock

After that, the tweak should be present in any build.

Cheers... Rick

[HKabaker]

It used to be a "rule" that the default topic should be first in the TOC, and not inside a book.

But if you want it in a a book, and can make it work, OK.

Harvey

[Alan_Davidson]

Thanks for the info Harvey. I guess by "rule" you mean a bug that they never bothered to fix. I didn't know about that one. I've been using RoboHelp on this same help project since version 4 and it has worked until I upgraded to version 7.

-Al Davidson

[Peter Grainge]

I think Harvey meant it was a convention, probably from the days before autosync was available with any help authoring tool. Perhaps he is suggesting that you adopt the old convention to resolve the problem you are having.

[Guest]

I saw this too, but if you keep "playing" with it, eventually books start to open. this is very weird.

[Alan_Davidson]

Thanks kath33 and Captiva8r!

To recap, the solution is to edit this file (assuming a default install):

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 7\RoboHTML\WebHelp5Ext\template_stock

This is the edit to make:

Type « gsTP=null; » just after « sHTML+=" ».
In other words:

sHTML+="markBook("+nIdx+")

should be changed to:

sHTML+="gsTP=null;markBook("+nIdx+")

-Al Davidson

[BillK1948]

It has been a couple of months since the 'TOC books don't open in Firefox' issue, so I was hoping that someone might be able to help with my problem...
The TOC books don't open in Firefox (IE is okay) via autosync unless I have previously opened them manually.
I have made all the changes to files suggested on the forums and Peter Grainge's (excellent) site. I am using RoboHelp 7 and Firefox 2.0.0.11. My default topic is not within a book and is at the top of the TOC. None of my books are linked to topics.

Any ideas?

[Peter Grainge]

To the best of my knowledge, the changes posted do work. Have you tried ticking the republish all option or generating to a new location?

[BillK1948]

Yes, I have tried different locations, and several WebHelp projects - even the simplest project with just two books and five topics behaves the same way. The symtoms are completely consistant.
Anyway, if you haven't heard of this problem, it is obviously something wrong with my setup. So I will re-installing RoboHelp and try again.
Thanks Peter.

[Peter Grainge]

I didn't say I hadn't heard of the problem, I just haven't heard from anyone saying the fix didn't work.

I doubt reinstalling will fix this.

Send me the small project you created.

[BillK1948]

OK Peter, I have sent you an email

[Peter Grainge]

Not seen yet?

[BillK1948]

Peter - I sent it to the email address given on your website. It has a 470 KB attachment as a zip file.

[Peter Grainge]

1] Send me another email without any attachment.

2] Check the original is not blocked by your firewall. Many of them will block RH projects.

[BillK1948]

OK, email without attachment sent at 19:35.
Thanks

[Ejung]

I am also having the same problem even after making the changes to the code. Did you figure out if it was your settings?

[BillK1948]

Thanks for responding. There are three of us who have this problem, which helps to confirm that it is an application bug rather than faulty operation/installation.

None of us has come up with a solution as yet, but we will post information on the forum if someone finds out how to sort it. I have registered it as a bug with Adobe a few days ago, but no response from them. Maybe if a few more people report it they will take notice.

[Peter Grainge]

For the benefit of anyone other than Bill (he already knows), I tested Bill's project and got the same result. I also created a similar project and got the same result. Then I checked my main merged project and it works fine. However, I am not sure the output I am looking at there is RH7 generated so one of my guys is regenerating that from RH7 to be sure.

This problem is not new to RH7, it has been known of for a couple of years. What seems to be different is that the fix on my site is not working. So either there is a problem with the fix under RH7 or there is something different about the merged project I tested. I am inclined to the latter as the merged project never had the problem in the first place under RH6.

So what are the differences? Two spring to mind. One is the very fact that it is a merged project. Two that the default topic is in fact a redirect and maybe the action of redirecting to a topic in another project in the merge overcomes the problem.

This is something that one of my guys is testing at the moment as I need to be certain that I am not going to hit this problem with my live projects.

Meantime, if any of you want to try a redirect first and then a merged webhelp setup, let us all know how you get on.

[Peter Grainge]

Bad news guys. The main project no longer works properly under RH7, based on an initial test. Unfortunately my instructions were not followed precisely so the test is having to be redone but I doubt it will make a difference.

Once the retest is completed, assuming no change, I will advise Adobe of the problem.

[HKabaker]

Folks,

If you wait until Firefox has loaded the TOC and seems to be ready, but the wheel is still spinning, and you click Esc to stop the spinning,

how do the TOC books and sync behave?

Harvey