Browser Issues

[chriskeeling]

Before I begin my litany of issues, I should mention that I am using a few of Rick Stone's wonderful hacks as well as some minor Javascript edits of my own (such as for Breadcrumb style changes), so I don't necessarily expect everything to work right on the first try. I am not faulting Rick for any of these issues - he includes a note at the beginning of his scripts saying that they are only for IE 6 and may not work in other browsers - but I would like to get everything to work the same in IE, Safari, and Firefox, since we are officially supporting all three browsers with our product. I know, "ask Rick!", right? But just in case anyone else has already "fixed" these scripts for Safari and/or Firefox, I figured I'd just ask everyone.

Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180 SP 2

None.

Safari 3.1.1

About box opens with scrollbars. How do I remove them? Where is the source for the link to the About box so I can insert "scrollbars=no" into the href? (SOLVED)
Contents, Index, and Search do not open when they are hidden using a script from Rick Stone so that the taskbar displays Contents, Index, and Search instead of using the "Show" link. (SOLVED)
System opens to table of contents and default topic instead of default topic only (with panel hidden by the same script). (SOLVED)
Breadcrumb links underlined at all times regardless of mouseover status. (OPEN ISSUE)
Added: Contents, Index, and Search do not function when hidden and a breadcrumb is used to move away from the current topic. (OPEN ISSUE)

Firefox 2.0.0.14

Help window and About box show “file://” in title bar (running locally). How do I get rid of that? Can I add something to the href attribute to suppress that? (SOLVED)
Contents, Index, and Search do not open when they are hidden using a script from Rick Stone so that the taskbar displays Contents, Index, and Search instead of using the "Show" link. (SOLVED)
System opens to table of contents and default topic instead of default topic only (with panel hidden by the same script). (SOLVED)
Breadcrumb links not underlined, even on mouseover. (OPEN ISSUE)
Added: Contents, Index, and Search do not function when hidden and a breadcrumb is used to move away from the current topic. (OPEN ISSUE)

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris

P.S. As a former Webworks/ePublisher user, I must admit that RoboHelp 7 is at least as clean and easy to use if not more so, a far cry from the last time I used it (when it was still Blue Sky Software's product!).

[chriskeeling]

By way of clarification, the hiding script I am using from Rick's arsenal modifies the function addButton in whtopic.js as follows:

Original

else if(sType=="show")
{
if(isTopicOnly()&&(!gbOpera6||gbOpera7))
{
var sTitle="Show Navigation Component";
goShow=new button(sText,nWidth,nHeight,sImg1,sImg2,sImg3);
sButton="<a title=\""+sTitle+"\" class=\"whtbtnshow\" href=\"javascript:void(0);\" onclick=\"show();return false;\">";
if(nStyle==BTN_TEXT)
sButton+=goShow.sText;
else
sButton+=getImage(goShow,sTitle);
sButton+="</a>";
}
}

Modified version

else if (sType == "show")
{
if (isTopicOnly())
{
setTimeout('show()',1);
}
else
setTimeout('showHidePane()',1);
}

This sets a 1 millisecond delay before automatically hiding the TOC pane - at least, in IE 6...

Chris

[HKabaker]

Chris,

I just posted a note in General Discussion saying Firefox 3 (Windows XP environment) works fine for RH 7 WebHelp. No hacks. With nav pane hidden, TOC, Index, Search buttons restore the pane.

Haven't tried Show/Hide in the topic window.

Harvey

[chriskeeling]

Harvey,

Thanks for the tip. I tried installing FF3 and found the following issues:

Firefox 3.0

Contents, Index, and Search open when they are hidden, right up until a breadcrumb or another internal link is selected. After that, none of them work anymore.
System still opens to table of contents and default topic instead of default topic only.
Breadcrumb links still not underlined, even on mouseover.
Address bar is showing in both main help window and About box, even though it's suppressed fine in IE and Safari.

FF3 did get rid of the "file://" issue and the hidden nav pane works part of the time (until I click a breadcrumb and confuse it). I'll keep searching the code to see what I can fix (or, more likely, break!).

Thanks again,

Chris

[chriskeeling]

I just found some interesting information that is new to me (although perhaps not to some of the gurus here!). I have been using IE 6 as a base and am only just now starting to use Safari and Firefox - which is probably why they are giving me headaches! As it turns out, IE 7 has some of the same "features" that are interfering with the way my Webhelp output appears. Here's a nifty little chart showing how these browsers react to some common browser window controls:

Control____________IE6___IE7___Firefox___Safari

Top left corner______Yes__Yes__Yes______Yes
Width_____________Yes__Yes__Yes______Yes
Height____________Yes__Yes__Yes______Yes
Hide address bar____Yes__No*__Yes**____Yes
Hide menu bar______Yes__Yes__Yes______No
Disable resize______Yes__Yes__No_______Yes
Disable scrollbars___Yes__Yes__Yes______Yes
Disable status bar___Yes__No___No_______No
Disable title bar_____Yes__No___No_______No
Disable toolbar______Yes__Yes__Yes______Yes

* IE7 hides the address bar by replacing it with a non-editable address bar.
** When hidden, Firefox prefixes the title of the window with the URL.

What this tells me is that I can pretty much forget about solving the addrsss bar / menu bar / status bar / toolbar issues, since the newer browsers no longer respond to those controls. hence, that part of my problem is "solved".

I also solved the Safari About box issue by making the window a little larger (apparently Safari has a larger border area).

This leaves me with only the script-related navigation pane issues and the hyperlink underline issue (which is pretty minor).

I hope this helps someone else!

Chris

[chriskeeling]

One small step...

The help now opens in Safari and Firefox to the topic only, without the navigation pane open, for a tiny fraction of a second, then the navigation pane opens itself. Maybe if I can figure out where to block that from happening? IE 6 still works fine.

I got this to work by changing the code (in whtopic.js):

function isShowHideEnable()
{
if(gbIE4)
return true;
else
return false;
}

to this:

function isShowHideEnable()
{
return true;
}

Thanks,

Chris

[ewriter]

Some more information about what works with various browsers can be found at the quirksmode site:
http://www.quirksmode.org/

The organization is a little funky, but click the navigation link on the left and select Compatibility Tables

Andrea

[chriskeeling]

Very cool! Thanks! 🙂

[chriskeeling]

One more step in the right direction!

I got the help to open to the topic with the navigation bar hidden but the tabs (contents, index, search, glossary) displayed. To do this, I matched the delay times in two places. Once synchronized, they worked perfectly. The first script is in whstart.js, where I changed a delay of 5000 ms to a delay of 500 ms:

if (gbNav4 && !gbNav6)
{
var gnReload=0;
setTimeout("delayReload();",500);
}

The second place I changed the delay was in Rick Stone's script, where I changed the delay under both timeout settings from 1 ms to 500 ms to match the reload delay in the script above.

The last two things I have to work on are the failure of the contents, index, search, and glossary tabs to function in Firefox and Safari after a breadcrumb has been used from the topic pane, and the forced underline / refusal to underline for breadcrumbs in these browsers. I'll post anything I find here, of course.

Chris

[HKabaker]

Where do the breadcrumbs point? How many levels deep are they?

By any chance, do you have TOC books linked to topics?

Harvey

[chriskeeling]

The breadcrumbs point to higher-level topics in the system - nothing custom, external, or funky, just standard breadcrumbs.

Two to four levels from Home - same (dys)functionality at every level in Firefox and Safari.

I do not have any TOC books linked to topics.

Thanks,

Chris

[chriskeeling]

In whstart.js, I have changed the code as follows (325 ms is the fastest time I have been able to find that allows both Firefox and Safari to open correctly, although I have also discovered that Safari will work with less than half that value):

if (gbNav4 && !gbNav6)
{
var gnReload=0;
setTimeout("delayReload();",325);
}

I have also modified Rick Stone's script again to allow IE users to open with no delay (1 ms), while forcing Firefox and Safari users to wait (325 ms):

else if (sType == "show")
{
if (isTopicOnly())
{
if (gbNav4|gbSafari)
{
setTimeout('show()',325);
}

else
setTimeout('show()',1);
}

else

if (gbNav4|gbSafari)
{
setTimeout('showHidePane()',325);
}

else

setTimeout('showHidePane()',1);
}

However, having made these changes, I still have not solved either the failure for the navigation pane controls to work after a breadcrumb has been selected in Firefox and Safari (this occurs only when the nav pane is hidden - when it is open, and a breadcrumb is clicked, the tabs still work fine) or the forced underline/no underline issue. So, I'm still working on these items.

Chris