RH 7 unintentional changes to header and footer

[Alan_Davidson]

I'm using RoboHelp 7. I'm having a recurring problem concerning headers, footers, and templates. This is what happens (I don't have the dialog boxes in front of me, so I'm parapharasing):

I choose Save All.

A dialog box opens that says, "The header and footer has changed and cannot be saved. Do you want to revert changes?" (Note that I did not change the header or footer) My choices are to click Yes or No. If I choose Yes, I believe that the intentional edits I made to the topic are not saved because I can't exit RoboHelp without be prompted to save my changes. If I then try to save my changes, I once again get the header-and-footer-has-changed dialog box.

If I choose No in the header-and-footer-has-changed dialog box, I then get the dialog box that asks whether I want to apply template changes to all topics or only this topic, with a warning that if I apply it to only this topic that the topic will be unlinked from the template. Because I did not make an explicit change to the header or footer, I do not want to propagate this unknown change to all the topics, so I choose to apply the change to only this topic. (Note that there is no way to back out at this point, that is, I have to apply the change to at least this topic.) I then have to open the properties dialog box for the topic and reapply my template to the topic.

This happened to me again yesterday, and since I use source control and could back out my changes, and my intentional edits to the topic were minor, I decided to apply the change to all topics so that I could do a diff and see the changes that RoboHelp made to my template.

RoboHelp made two types of changes to the template. One was that it changed the position and line breaks in some metadata contained in a couple of div elements. I think that change is of no real consequence, except for the fact that it causes me to have to go through this process of figuring what happened each time it happens because I cannot just assume that the unknown change is OK. The second change is that a p element containg a nonbreaking space was inserted after the opening body element. That is a completely unacceptable change.

This problem has been happening to me once or twice a day for the past week. I upgraded to RoboHelp 7 several months ago.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? It really seems to be a bug.

-Alan Davidson

[Amebr-ke0mH4]

I don't have any solutions for you, unfortunately, but just thought I'd pipe up and say "Me too". It doesn't happen as regularly as it seems to for you at the moment, so I've just muddled along re-applying the template to the individual topics as it happens. My best guess is it happens when making a change to (or just below) the topic title, but that's just a feeling.

[Alan_Davidson]

Thanks, I appreciate knowing that I'm not alone. I'll keep an eye out for a relationship with making edits close to the title, although I can say for sure that in my most recent brush with this problem I know that I didn't make edits anywhere close to the title.

-Al Davidson

[Wilfred_Kruijsbergen]

I also have this problem. I work with RoboHelp 7 in combination with RoboSource 3.1.
Every time I modify a 'Topic title' RoboHelp says 'This topic was created from a template and the header or footer has been modified, etc.'
In the template I've created a header with the variable 'Title'. Every time I create a new topic the header is automically added.
This is what I do:
I choose for 'Apply this modification to all topics created from template'. Robo checks out he template automatically and I 'Undo check out' the template via 'File status'.

[Wilfred_Kruijsbergen]

I also have this problem. I work with RoboHelp 7 in combination with RoboSource 3.1.
Every time I modify a 'Topic title' RoboHelp says 'This topic was created from a template and the header or footer has been modified, etc.'
In the template I've created a header with the variable 'Title'. Every time I create a new topic the header is automically added.
This is what I do:
I choose for 'Apply this modification to all topics created from template'. Robo checks out he template automatically and I 'Undo check out' the template via 'File status'.

Wilfred Kruijsbergen
The Netherlands

[Captiv8r]

Hi Wilfred

You should consider moving that Topic Title to the first line of your main body text. If you don't, you will constantly battle the messages and checking out of all the topics.

The Header and Footer areas are really more intended for information that isn't likely to be different on each topic.

Cheers... Rick

[Pet3689]

Captiv8r,

Interestingly, the RoboHelp7 HTML help documentation suggests exactly the opposite. They suggest that headers can be used to automatically add always-updated titles to all help topics, by adding a Title variable to the header of the template.

We did this, and modied a not-too-small but not-too-large number of topics this way (i.e., set their template, and remove the per-topic title). However, we then found out that the headers and footers do not appear in the Word/PDF output. Consequently, these topics did not have titles in Word/PDF. So, we had to undo this change.

Since RoboHelp is a single-source environment, the RoboHelp developers (well, the help writers) should have been more cautious with such advice.

So, you are right, and the RoboHelp team should update their help documentation to highlight this fact.

[HKabaker]

I hate to hear a user blaming the help author for problems running the application. Life is so unfair.

Harvey

[Wilfred_Kruijsbergen]

Captiv8r,

In a template only the headers and footers are update to all topics. If I move my 'title variable' from the header to the first line of the body text, my topics will not be updated (I don't like to change 3500 topics of my webhelp project). That's the reason why I put the title variable in the header of my template.

My opinion: these messages are not correct. If I modify a topic title, it may not have effect on the contents of the template...