As I've continued to teach my online RoboHelp class to students who attend from all over the world, one recurring issue has been confusion over the following three RoboHelp features: the start page, the project title and the default topic. The three files/names are totally different, having nothing to do with each other, but are commonly confused.
By the time you are finished reading this text, I'm hoping that the confusion is a thing of the past.
The Project Title: The Project Title is determined when you create the project (you type the name into the "Enter the title of this project" field).
You won't come into contact with the Project Title again until you Generate the project. At that point, the Project Title appears in the browser's title bar (and the tab title if the browser supports tabbed browsing).
You can change the Project Title via the General tab on the Project Settings dialog box (Edit > Project Settings). A Project Title can, and should, contain spaces.
The Start Page: The Start Page is a file that is created automatically by RoboHelp when you generate the project. The start page is the frameset that displays the toolbars at the top of the help screen, the navigation panel at the left and the default topic at the right. The Start Page is, in no way, the Default Topic (which is discussed next). Instead, the Start Page is simply the page that gets your whole system to display once it has been called by an application.
The name of the Start Page is typically the same as your project name (which you determine when you first create the project). However, once the project has been created, you can easily change the name of the Start page via the Properties of your layout (on the Single Source Layouts pod) by typing a new name in the Select Output Folder and Start Page field (name.htm). The name of the Start Page can never contain spaces.
The Default Topic: Once the Start Page has done its job and the Help System opens, the Default Topic open and appears at the right side of the Help System. By default, the Default Topic will always be the first topic you created when you first created the project. However, you can easily change the Default topic via the Properties of your layout (on the Single Source Layouts pod).
And there you have it… the Project Title, Start Page and the Default Topic all work together in a generated project. While the Default Topic and Start Page can be changed in the same basic place (the Properties of a layout), I am hoping that any confusion is now a thing of the past.
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I’ve been duplicating the same project in several languages and require the start page to be consistent. For some reason, I can’t change the name of the start page. If I change the name in the field shown above, for example the output file as “outputfolder\English\start_page.htm”, Robohelp just creates a folder named “outputfolder\start_page.htm\”
I can’t figure out to have the start page come out with a name I’ve chosen, other than to manually change the name of the .htm file in windows explorer.
I’ve been duplicating the same project in several languages and require the start page to be consistent. For some reason, I can’t change the name of the start page. If I change the name in the field shown above, for example the output file as “outputfolder\English\start_page.htm”, Robohelp just creates a folder named “outputfolder\start_page.htm\”
I can’t figure out to have the start page come out with a name I’ve chosen, other than to manually change the name of the .htm file in windows explorer.
I’ve been duplicating the same project in several languages and require the start page to be consistent. For some reason, I can’t change the name of the start page. If I change the name in the field shown above, for example the output file as “outputfolder\English\start_page.htm”, Robohelp just creates a folder named “outputfolder\start_page.htm\”
I can’t figure out to have the start page come out with a name I’ve chosen, other than to manually change the name of the .htm file in windows explorer.