Pop-up outside the parent window

[dkeeling]

Hi all,
The company I work for has a proprietary help system that I would like to emulate using RoboHelp. The main help window consists of the TOC and Topic panels and is quite narrow... the topic panel being about the same width as the TOC.
However, screen illustrations are shown in auto-sizing pop-ups outside the main window, so they don't get in the way of the text. I have not found a way of replicating this effect in RoboHelp - the autosizing prop-ups seem to be limited to the size of the parent window, and the "display in Frame - New Window" option displays the image in a browser window... toolbars and menus included... not pretty.

Any ideas as to how this can be accomplished?

[RoboColum_n_]

Hi dkeeling and welcome to the RH community.

Can you tell us what type of output you are creating (e.g. Webhelp, CHM) as the answer depends on this.

[dkeeling]

Hi Colum,

Thanks for the welcome! I realise that I need to change my screen name - dkeeling is a little vague.

In terms of output, I would prefer to produce a .CHM, though Webhelp might be an acceptable alternative if the result is more attractive.

[RoboColum_n_]

Sorry Duncan. I didn't see your name at the bottom so just referred to your logon.

To be honest the decision on whether you ouptut a CHM or collection of webhelp files has nothing to do with how you open topics. It does have everything to do with where the help will be located. If you want the help to be installed locally on each user's hard drive then a CHM file is the way to go. If you want to have a central repository (e.g. a server or website) for the help where each person goes to get it, then webhelp is the way to go.

So assuming you are outputing a CHM. You can create a custom window and then assign this to the TOC page you wish to open from the TOC. The first step is to create your custom window. You do this by right clicking on the Windows folder in your Project tab and selecting the "New Window" menu item. Create the window as you require (e.g. Tri-pane settings, etc.). Then create your topic to which you will link and add it to the TOC. Then right click on the TOC entry and select "Properties". In there click on the Advanced tab and specify the window name you created in the first step. Compile and test. Hope this helps.

[dkeeling]

No problem Colum, the signature was a bit of an after-thought.

However, the problem is a little more complex...

The base topic is listed in the TOC. I want to add a clickable link in the base topic, displaying a screen image in a pop-up window outside of the source (parent) topic window. The only way that I can see that being done, is to select the "New Frame" radio button, with the New Window option. I don't want to add the screen capture file to the TOC.

[RoboColum_n_ · Accepted solution]

In that case I fear your options are somewhat limited. If you could persuade the powers that be to have a wiser topic pane you could use custom sized popup links to the screen shots. Other than that, you could have a TOC book at the bottom with a space as a title that contains the screen shot topics. As it doesn't have a title people may not use it. Maybe you could even use an image for the book icon that is completely blank which would hide it from the user. Is this a sledgehammer and nut scenario.

[dkeeling]

Yes, I thought that these were probably the only options. I downloaded a trial version of Robohelp 7 to see if there were other options but, sadly, this remains unchanged.

Thanks for your input Colum. Two heads are better than one ;-)

[RoboColum_n_]

Duncan. You could submit a change request to Adobe for this. I'm sure there are others out there who would value such functionality. You can submit a request via this link.