Category: Help Authoring

The current version of MadCap Flare does not allow you to directly remove recently used projects from the Open an Existing Project area of the start page.

I made a call to MadCap support about it and they offered the following:

Warning:  This is not supported by MadCap Technical Support.  This is provided for your information only.

1. Go to Start > Run. The Run menu opens.
2. Type regedit in the Open field. The Registry Editor opens.
3. Under the Edit menu, select Find…
4. Type RecentProjects in the Find What field.
5. De-select the Values and Data checkboxes, leaving only Keys selected.
6. Click Find Next. The registry should open to the correct key (called RecentProjects).
7. In the right pane of the Registry Editor, select the project to be deleted  and highlight it.
8. Press the Delete key. The value for the highlighted project should disappear.
9. Exit the Registry Editor. No save is necessary.

If you are a RoboHelp author and have been testing WebHelp on your local PC via IE 6, you’ve likely come across the annoying, yellow Information bar that appears at the top of your browser. You know the one, you have to right-click it and allow blocked content before your WebHelp skin will appear. Arghhhhh!

The Information bar will not be a problem if users are viewing your help system via a Web server. However, if the help system is on a local drive instead of a server, the alert appears.

I’d been meaning to post a way to turn off the alert message for some time. I never got around to it until a student recently emailed me the steps as a gentle reminder to post them. Special thanks to Florita Welsh, Instructional Designer at Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P for sending the steps that appear below.

• Choose Tools > Internet Options
• Select the Advanced Advanced
• Scroll down.
• Under the Security category, select Allow active content to run in files on My Computer
• Click OK

From this point forward, when viewing your generated WebHelp, you should be able to see the skins with no problems.

I frequently get asked for strategies (or best practices) for importing MS Word documents into RoboHelp HTML X5.

Rather than re-invent the wheel, I found a great site that has a ton of useful (and accurate) information. I especially loved the information about dealing with bullets.

I encourage you to check out: http://www.grainge.org/index.htm#authoring/importing/import_wizard_x5.htm

I recently received this email about RoboHelp’s not-so-helpful help system:

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"Does Macromedia purposely disable the Help menu in RoboHelp? I’ve clicked on "Contents and Index" and the varied context sensitive items in the "Help" menu. I tried pushing F1… zilch. With both methods I see the hour-glass icon quickly flicker a couple times and then nothing happens.
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Here’s how to resolve this problem:

To fix the problem in RoboHelp, choose Tools > Options. On the General tab, select Use Offline Help (insert a Check Mark). Then click OK.

By default, RoboHelp’s Help system is hooked to the Web. When you use the Help menu to request Help, RoboHelp goes online and looks for http://help.robohelp.com for the help system. Since a Web connection is needed, it could take a long time for the Help system to appear, depending on your connection speed. If there’s any trouble with the connection, the Help system will not appear at all.

This question comes from Bil. Alvernaz:

"Is there any way to get rid of or replace the "Powered by RoboHelp" (i.e., what you click in the upper right hand corner of the screen to get contact information)."

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Yes Bil. The Powered By logo image is named wht_logo1.gif in your top level WebHelp folder, If you know what you are doing, you could modify this graphic to be anything you want, such as your companies logo. Maybe even a 1 pixel by 1 pixel transparent gif that would not be seen.

The HTML file that is displayed when the Powered By logo is clicked is called whskin_banner.htm and is located in top level WebHelp folder. You could also modify this file to have your companies logo and text. Again this is a hack of the WebHelp source files and this must be done at your own risk.

To customize the logo:

On the Toolbar tab, under Main, double-click Logo

The Logo dialog opens

In Image, type a file name or click  to browse for an image file .GIF or .JPG)

When you’ve located the image, click Open. The image is copied to your skins folder

In Author, enter the name of the company or author

Click OK to return to the Skin Editor

Removing the Powered by RoboHelp logo

Users click a logo (either your own or RoboHelp’s default) in the upper-right side of the toolbar to display an "About" box describing the project’s author or company, the version of RoboHelp, and the output format version.

The file that controls the popup that appears when the logo is clicked is called whskin_banner.htm.   

You can find this file in your WebHelp folder and can open and edit the content in notepad.

Look for this text as follows:

  <td valign="top">

  <p>Author:&nbsp;eHelp Corporation</p>

  <p>Powered by:&nbsp;WebHelp 5.00

  <br>Generated by:&nbsp;RoboHelp 2002</p>

  <p><a class="tail" href="http://www.ehelp.com/webhelp1"     target="_blank">www.ehelp.com</a></p>

You can get rid of the button entirely in the following manner.

Open up your WebHelp folder and look for the file whskin_tbar.htm 

Open the file in notepad

Remove this line of text:

addButton("banner",BTN_IMG,"eHelp Corporation","","","","",0,0,"","","","","","");

Warning:  If you edit these files, you will need to store them outside of the WebHelp folder or they will be overwritten the next time you generate WebHelp.

The following question comes from E. Proeva:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I have RoboHelp Office which includes RoboHelp for Word X4 and RoboHelp HTML X3. I already have your Essentials for RoboHelp HTML X3, but I need a manual for RoboHelp for Word X4. Could you please tell me which book of your Essentials series would cover the RoboHelp for Word X4 version best.

Thanks
E. Proeva

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It was my intention to update my RoboHelp Classic 9 book to RoboHelp for Word X3, X4 and then X5. However, based on diminished support and sales of RoboHelp for Word (based on information from Macromedia), we focused our resources instead on RoboHelp HTML. We have books for every version of RoboHelp HTML including X5, which is the most recent version available from Macromedia

RoboHelp for Word did not change much until release X5 so you could certainly have used my Classic 9 book on version 2002, X3 and possibly X4. And if memory serves, X3 and X4 didn’t have many changes over 2002. I have had a few customers purchase the Classic 9 book and use it as a starting-point to learning the newer versions of the software. Please keep in mind that if you choose that path, tools, commands and screen shots shown in my book may not match the software. In that case, you’d be on your own to learn what’s changed. Everybody learns differently, but I’ve heard that most people are able to push forward in spite of the differences between what’s shown in the book and what is seen on the screen.

The following question comes from Spencer Seale, a former RoboHelp student of mine:

"We have a help file that we only distribute to our clients twice a year when we ‘upgrade.’ I want to include some demos in the help file. We have the demos up on our company website. I think it makes more sense just to provide links to the web page, so if the demo needs to be changed, I can change it on the website and don’t have to worry about the demos in the help file being wrong.

"ALL of our users have existing internet connections, it is a requirement, they all have IE 6 and Flash player."

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The question is: which is better, RoboHelp projects that contain external or internal links to movies?

Spencer’s technique is great. Since his "start page" and the movies will be external to the project, he won’t have to re-generate the project every time he adds or updates a movie. Bravo!

One major drawback to linking anything to an external Web files or movies: If user’s are without Web access, they won’t be able to get to your “start” page for your movies, or the movies themselves.

Just remember, when you Export/Publish RoboDemo and Captivate movies, you’ll actually end up with two files: an HTML file and .SWF file. You should always link to the .HTML file to avoid possible distorted .SWF playback.

Note: You can learn more about RoboDemo and Captivate in my step-by-step training manuals.