RH7 - Snippets

[lillibetUK]

Still playing with RH7, but here's a question...

Why can I add snippets to a topic then copy/paste the content into a drop-down, but not add a snippet to an existing drop-down?

[lillibetUK]

Sorry, this should be in the RoboHelp for HTML help forum. How do I move it?

[johndaigle]

(No need to move this post)

It works for me? I created a snippet which includes a table, a graphic and text. I then copied the snippet to the clipboard and pasted it into an existing dropdown that previously only had some text and it worked for me, including updating when I edit the snippet?

Perhaps I don't understand the situation. Describe the content of the snippet and we'll take another crack at it.
Thanx,
john

[lillibetUK]

John, that's my point entirely.
I can copy and paste the snippet info into a drop-down.
But, I cannot click and drag the snippet from the snippet pod over to a drop-down, despite the cursor showing that I can drag it to the drop-down.

I read somewhere that snippets cannot work with drop-downs. So why can I copy and paste the info, but not click and drag? Perhaps not all the functionality has been blocked?

[CraigCC]

Hi LillibetUK,

I see where you are coming from. The drag and drop is showing a plus sign, but when you drop the snippet into a drop down dialog nothing happens.

The only way to include a new (or existing) snippet into a drop down is to copy and existing the snippet segment from a topic and paste it to the drop down dialog.

Thank goodness there is a simple workaround, but I agree this should work exactly the same as variables which can be dragged and dropped directly into a drop down dialog.

I'm going to raise and feature request and suggest that you do the same if you have time. The more votes the better!

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Thanks for spotting this.
Kind Regards
Craig

[lillibetUK]

Phew! I'm glad someone understands what I'm whittering on about!

I'll add this as a feature request as well, but I'm not sure that this should actually work at all. As I said, I'm sure that I read somewhere that snippets and drop-downs should not work together, in which case we've managed the impossible by copying and pasting the snippet into the drop-down.

[johndaigle]

Hey lillibetUK
I see your issue more clearly now!
Since trying out the copy/paste, I've verified that's in fact the *only* way it can be done at this point. As Craig says, drag and drop as well as Insert > Snippet commands should be enabled within the hotspot editing box but they are not.

Not exactly on lillibetUK's issue, but related to hotspots and Snippets, I just tripped over this "Known Issue" item in the Robohelp ReadMe on the Adobe site.
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb402741
Item 1556376 simply says "Expanding and dropdown hotspots are not working when applied using Snippets."
Apparently this refers to the fact that you can't create a Snippet that contains a dropdown. I don't see anything about workarounds.

Thanx,
john

[lillibetUK]

Hmmm. Perhaps I should have reported this as a defect rather than a feature request?

[CraigCC]

No worries lillibetUK. Adobe have now been made aware of the issue from a few corners. Just because we have a workaround doesn't mean it won't get fixed!

The important thing for people to be aware of is that Adobe do not monitor every post on this forum. That's why we encourage people to report issues via the online forms.

[kdws]

I've been putting snippets into drop-down text boxes using the work-around outlined here and find that they appear to work just fine but at some point, I find that the snippets disappear from the drop-down box. The drop-down Text Editor still "thinks" there's something there, but no text appears either in Design mode or Preview mode.

[heavywriter]

kdws,

When you do this (copy the snippet into the DD area), are you seeing any subsequent updates to the snippet reflected in your topic? I can't get mine to show updates - it's just a static copy and paste (kind of useless, then)...

Also, yes, I understand the instructions we've seen state that snippets cannot containDHTML content. Fine. That's NOT what we're talking about - we're talking about including a snippet in existing DHTML content.