RE: HTML Help - links to secondary windows within topics

["McDonald, Guy A." <Guy -dot- A -dot- McDonald -at- conoco -dot- com>]

Disregard my question. I answer myself in this note. eHelp provides a
ridiculous way to do something they should have engineered into the HTML
Help viewer. The manpower investment involved in using this procedure with
100s of links is not cost effective.
 
~~~~~~~~~~
How to Create a Link to a Secondary Window in RoboHelp HTML
Article #: 21847
Found in: RoboHelp HTML, not version specific
Last updated: April 18, 2001
Problem: 
How to create a link to a secondary window in HTML Help.
source: http://www.ehelp/com


1. Insert a Related Topics Control
2. From the RoboHelp HTML menu click the "INSERT HTML HELP CONTROL" button
3. From the "INSERT HTML HELP CONTROL" menu select "RELATED TOPICS"
4. On the "Related Topics Wizard - Button Options" dialog box click the
"Hidden for Scripts" check box.
5. Click the "NEXT" button
6. On the "Related Topics Wizard - Related Topics Selection" dialog box
select the Topic you want displayed in the secondary window from the "Topics
in Project" box.
7. Click the "NEXT" button
8. In the drop-down "Window" box select your secondary window
9. Click the "NEXT" button
10. Click the "FINISH" button 
11. Insert the Hotspot text in you want for this link to a secondary window
12. Highlight this Hotspot text
13. Create a Hyperlink from this Hotspot text to any topic in the project
14. Select the "TrueCode" tab at the bottom left of RoboHelp HTML
15. Locate the Hyperlink for the Hotspot text you entered in Step #4 
16. For example if you entered a Hotspot text of "Click Here" to the topic
"NewTopic1.htm" then you will be looking for the HTML code:

<A HREF="NewTopic1.htm">Click Here</A>

Modify this code to read:

<A HREF="JavaScript:RelatedTopics.Click()">Click Here</A>

17. In the TrueCode again look for the code for the Related Topics button.
Here is the HTML code for a Related Topics button:

<OBJECT
CLASSID="clsid:ADB880A6-D8FF-11CF-9377-00AA003B7A11"
ID="RelatedTopics"
ALIGN=BOTTOM
BORDER="0"
VSPACE="0"
HSPACE="0">
<PARAM NAME="Command" VALUE="Related Topics">
<PARAM NAME="Window" VALUE="secondary">
<PARAM NAME="Font" VALUE="MS Sans Serif,8,0,,">
<PARAM NAME="Item1" VALUE="NewTopic1;NewTopic1.htm">
</OBJECT>

18. Change the Related Topics button HTML code for the line:

<PARAM NAME="Item1" VALUE="NewTopic1;NewTopic1.htm">

To

<PARAM NAME="Item1" VALUE="NewTopic1;YourProjectName.chm::/NewTopic1.htm">
 
19. You will have to change YourProjectName.chm to the .chm filename for
your project. The Item1 PARAM NAME parameter is a list of the topics to
display from the Related Topics button. The VALUE parameter contains first
the topic title then the filename of the topic to display. In order to trick
Microsoft's HTML Help viewer to display a topic in a secondary window it is
necessary to include the projects CHM filename before the topic filename.
 
20. If the topic you are specifying in the VALUE parameter is not in the
root directory of this project then you also need to specify the directory
path to this topic in the VALUE parameter. For example if NewTopic1.htm was
in a project folder called MyTopics (this is project folders you created
under the HTML Files (Topics) folder) then you would change the VALUE
parameter to:
 
<PARAM NAME="Item1"
VALUE="NewTopic1;YourProjectName.chm::/MyTopics\NewTopic1.htm">
 
21. On the RoboHelp HTML menu select the "SAVE ALL" button
22. Compile and test this secondary window link. 
 
NOTE: Microsoft HTML Help controls such as Related Topics buttons only work
in the Compiled .CHM file.
NOTE: If you want to have multiple links to secondary windows then you need
to give each Related Topics control a unique ID name.
In the example above we used the default ID name of RelatedTopics. The ID
name of the control is stored in the controls HTML code. Notice in the HTML
code in Step #8 that the third lines says:
 
ID="RelatedTopics"
 
You can change this to any string of Alphanumeric characters. For example
you could insert a second Related Topics control and change its ID to
RelatedTopics2:
 
ID="RelatedTopics2"
 
The Hyperlink to this second Related Topics control also needs to specify
the Related Topics ID name. For example:
 
<A HREF="JavaScript:RelatedTopics2.Click()">Click Here</A>
 
The above link will call display the topic associated with the Related
Topics control whos ID is RelatedTopic2.
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: McDonald, Guy A. 
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 2:47 PM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Subject: HTML Help - links to secondary windows within topics
> 
> 
> Microsoft HTML Help does not support links to secondary windows from
within
> topics. Does anyone know a creative work-around such as a macro or
something
> similar to overcome this limitation?
> 
> Guy McDonald
> Information Development Manager
> Technical Information Architects, Inc.
> http://www.tiainfo.com
> 

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