Merged Projects open in New Window

[Guest]

Good Morning,

I am in the process of updating an existing help file for an application. Our CEO wants to include new sections as they are updated since we do minor updates on a weekly basis. With that in mind, I created a "master" project for the help file and will create smaller sections for each module of the application. I have experimented with this and everything works great here.

My problem comes when I merge the older file into the new one. One of three things happens:

It displays it in a different window (complete with TOC for the old file)
It displays the page not found error.
It crashes.

The older project was created with ForeHelp, but I was able to open it in RoboHelp without any problems. It will compile and running perfectly by itself, the only time problems come in are when the projects are merged.

Does anyone have any thoughts, suggestions, ideas, anything?
Aaron

[Peter Grainge]

Are we talking about webhelp or compiled chm files?

[Guest]

The output is a chm file. I am compiling as MS HTML Help under RoboHelp x5.

After doing a little more trail work, I have noticed some other "strange" happenings. I can get the porjects to merge, but from the TOC all of the articles open in a new window. From the index, however, they all open as they should--in the topic frame from the main window. Not sure why that is.

For a brief synopsis, here is what I have at this point:
A "master" project file that includes:

One new project for a section that is complete.
One project from the existing documentation.

I am not sure if I need to have the window definitions for each project would impact this or not.

Through trial and error, I have narrowed down the problem to the original documentation project. If I remove it from the TOC and generate the project, the new topics display as they should.

I will keep testing and see what I came come up with. If you have any idea as to what I might change in the original documentation to get it to work just let me know.

Thanks for all your help!
Aaron

[---Dirk_Bock]

Aaron,

if you want to have different help systems displayed in the same window, make sure that your windows definitions are correct. Under Windows > [window name] > Properties make sure that the window name for all CHMs is the same and begins with $global.

What other settings are necessary depends on the way you want to open the slave helps. Is the help system only called from the application, are context sensitive help calls implemented, does the users open the help system form the Windows Explorer, too?

Regards,

---Dirk Bock

[Guest]

I have set the window setting to be the same in all the projects to no avail. problem lies somewhere in the older project that I imported from ForeHelp. If I removed that chm file from the compile, everything works great even if the window settings do not match.

I think it might have to do with the way ForeHelp compiles projects. There are a lot more baggage files (js particularly) and more imbedded code in the ForeHelp files. I have tried importing the htm files created by ForeHelp directly into RoboHelp, but still get the same issue, so I am pretty sure the problem is with the way ForeHelp generates the final output.

I guess it might be easier to export ForeHelp to rtf and then create a new project for the old documentation. The existing documentation is not too large (about 150 topics) but does have quite a few screen shots.

Thanks,
Aaron

[---Dirk_Bock]

Try looking at the imported project's HHP-file. It is a simple text file you can open with Notepad. Near the beginning there is the section [WINDOWS], in which the windows for this projects are defined. Is the correct window name ($global_<something>) listed in there?

If not, but you have set the name within RH, try closing this project, deleteing its CPD-file and starting again. Depending on the size of the project, re-openeing it may take some time, but in many cases it's worth it.

---Dirk Bock

[Guest]

Thanks for your help guys. I finally gave up and exported the ForeHelp into rtf the converted to word as a new project.

Aaron