Project View as tree menu?

[Nick27]

Just wondering if the project view for my very large document can display as a tree style menu in RH itself when I'm working with it?

I just imported the doc, 500 pages, loads of topics at H1, 2, 3 and each heading level paginated so  I have a seperate topic for each, but I would like them to indent under each other, similar to how Windows Explorer indents folders within folder. Can this be done? surely, just to make it easier to view my whole project and arrange things neatly.

Thanks.

nick

[Guest]

I think you have to have folders to get indented levels in the Project tree. You can add them manually (right-click on the top-level folder, New..., Folder) and drag topics into them. Do it in RoboHelp, not Windows Explorer - that way, RH creates the Explorer folders automatically. It doesn't work the other way around.

I haven't imported a big Word doc, so I don't know if there's a way to automate folder creation during Word conversion. I'm pretty sure you can't automate folder creation after Word conversion.

HTH,

Elisa

[Nick27]

thanks for that.

disappointed. makes having to look through 1000 topics really difficult, and to get an idea of how the help file will look even harder. I saw the contents page displays how I want the menu to display, so perhaps I will work from that to get my tree menu organization - though its not really perfect as each book icon doesn't represent a topic, even though it is named as one, it instead has its information stored in the first sub-topic.

I'm surprised this feature isnt added, surely it would be beneficial to others with huge documents that want a better organised view. Having to manually create it with folders is a solution, but not ideal as it wont indent topics based on heading level, unless I make a folder for each topic which isn't effective.

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

I'm not sure what you exactly want, but perhaps it helps that you can add this first topic of every book to the book. Select the properties of the book and check Book with link. Select the topic or placeholder you want the book to open when clicked.

If you miss a feature, be sure to ask for it on the RoboHelp wish form. But before you ask for a feature, make sure it isn't already built in in some dark and

hidden place.

Greet,

Willam

[Nick27]

Basically I want it to look like this

http://www.ec-software.com/screens/screen_htmltemplates.png

see in their project explorer view they can shrink and expand certain parts of the entire project. It makes it easy to organise, see that topics are where they should be and cleans up the work space too......surely this can be done...

[Peter Grainge]

Are you using RH8? Once your topics are in the project, you can create folders and move topics where you want them. You can also change the order of your folders to your preferred layout.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Yeah I'm using RH8, and I have done the folders thing, but it only give me 2 levels, Folder > Topics.

If I want multiple levels i.e going from H1 > H2 > H3 with multiple topics under each I would have to create folders for all of these, with over 1000 topics its not exactly an option. I just want heading level to set off the topic level view. the same way its being done in the link posted above.

+H1

       H2

     +H2

           H3

           H3

     +H2

           H3

           H3

       H2

       H2    

and so on.

It lets me drill down to specific topics, arrange the workspace a lot better and just list the topics or section I want to look at without a huge list to stare at.

[Peter Grainge]

I think we have a terminology difference here.

A topic is a complete HTML file, it can have any number of headings in it but what is between them is not a topic.

Headings are just styles within a topic, so you cannot order topics by heading as one topic has many headings.

What Help and Manual seem to be doing is using the TOC in Project Explorer. That is OK if you want all topics in the TOC but that is not a typical scenario. Either that or they make their Project Manager folders look like a TOC.

You have imported a document with many topics (single html files) and right now they are in one folder. Help and Manual would likely be the same. You are seeing something where the folders have been created before the screenshot was taken.

Sorry but after such an import, it is normal to have to restructure the topics in whatever HAT you use, to the best of my knowledge.

Does that explain it?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Using the Help and Manual screenshot was just an example of how I want it to look.

but even with RH, if I use the folders to organise the structure I will have hundreds of folders with one or two topics in them. This seems a bit of a folder over load to me.

I know this can be done in author-it as I used it in the past, and I really hoped that RH had something similar.

So then how does everyone deal with something like this? Do you guys all create a bunch of sub-folders and indent them under other folders with topics inside each. Surely there is another way. Something to show a contents page like layout would just be so nice.

[Nick27]

So really the only way to get any kind of indented view of the project and topics is to create folders and move my topics in to them?

[Willam_van_Weelden]

Hi,

You can ofcourse create the TOC by hand, but that's probably not an option... The easiest way is probably to create a TOC in the word document that you can live with, and convert this TOC to a RoboHelp TOC on import.

Greet,

Willam

[Nick27]

There is a TOC in the doc, automatically created. But how can this help?

Won't I still be facing the same problem. I cant arrange topics and 'sub-topics' based on the TOC in the project view, the only way seems to be by using folders, that have to be manually created.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

If RoboHelp created a TOC that mimicked your Word document, you could edit topics (or the one superhumongous topic, depending on what you got when you imported) by using the TOC structure to double-click and edit topics.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7 or 8 within the day - $24.95! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks

[Peter Grainge]

Whoah up! Are you importing a Word document into RH for Word or RH HTML?

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Haha, ok let me explain.

Currently there is a huge word doc that has been worked on as the primary documentation. I've been employed here to sort this out and develop it into something that can actually be given to customers.

Rather than re-writing the whole doc in RH I have imported it into RH, and its primary output form will be Air Help, or possibly flash help. Unlikely it will ever become a printed workbook or anything of the like and its just too large, and who wastes paper like that these days really.

So, I have since imported the doc into RH HTML, the TOC that RH created based in the word TOC is ok, not too bad, and I may use it, but I'm now going through and putting topics into folders, as its the only way to achieve a nice tidy tree structure for me to work with. I hoped that RH would do this automatically based on either a TOC, or heading levels, sort of that next step from pagination.

So thats the story so far.

[Peter Grainge]

And apart from creating those folders and moving things around, that is pretty much the whole story!

You could consider a feature request to re-sort Project Manager according to a TOC so long as the TOC covers all topics or there is a defined way of handling topics not in the TOC. It just cannot sort on Headings though as Project Manager is about topics and any one topic will have many heading levels.

The more people who report a bug or request a feature, the more likely it is to be actioned. Please follow this link.

http://www.Adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[Nick27]

Yeah thanks, I sent through the feature request. Even something that can generate the folders based on the TOC. Its just very time consuming having to do it manually, though I understand that it is usually only done once with large documents then continued progress takes place within RH itself. Still though, it would have saved me a lot of time - and things that save me time, I like.

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

I know this likely won't be received very well, but you did ask.

Nick@Tag wrote:

Using the Help and Manual screenshot was just an example of how I want it to look.

but even with RH, if I use the folders to organise the structure I will have hundreds of folders with one or two topics in them. This seems a bit of a folder over load to me.

I know this can be done in author-it as I used it in the past, and I really hoped that RH had something similar.

So then how does everyone deal with something like this? Do you guys all create a bunch of sub-folders and indent them under other folders with topics inside each. Surely there is another way. Something to show a contents page like layout would just be so nice.

I deal with it by avoiding Word and working only in RoboHelp!

Yeah, I know your content is in Word presently. Not sure if something is preventing you from moving away from that. Back when I was a corporate drone, when someone jabbed a Word document at me and told me to put it in the system, my first step was to smile, say thanks, then after they walked away I opened Word, loaded the document and clicked File > Save As > Text. Then I went about putting it into RoboHelp as I wanted.

In my own opinion, Word just sucks cheese at working with HTML stuff.

Cheers... Rick

Helpful and Handy Links RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form Begin learning RoboHelp HTML 7 or 8 within the day - $24.95! Adobe Certified RoboHelp HTML Training SorcerStone Blog RoboHelp eBooks