Favicon

[dmcleod]

Anyone know a way of automating the process of adding a favicon to my webhelp output before it builds? I'm doing it manually, post-build right now. I'd like to stop that.

[whunter]

I'm not aware of a way to do it automatically (unless it was sneaked into v8 and I haven't noticed it yet). I have submitted an enhancement request to MadCap; I suggest doing the same if you haven't already.

[RamonS]

The favicon is something that the web server provides when a browser asks for it. What you can do is copy the favicon into the root of the content folder. That should drag it along with any build you make. Browsers tend to cache the image, so if you do not see it showing up or changing the deleting the browser cache may help.

[whunter]

I tried doing that, but it didn't work for me. It may have been that it worked for some browsers and not others, I don't recall.

[RamonS]

I also wonder if browsers or servers pick it up when it is not in the htdocs root. I don't think the favicon can change for each folder on the server. Hmmmm....Wikipedia has the answer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon
Adding the additional portion to the header in the a master page should get the favicon included.

[LTinker68]

I believe the favicon has to be at the root directory in order for it to work, so at the same level as default.htm, default_CSH.htm, etc. The only way I know of to do that automatically is to create a new folder at the root of the Content Explorer, call it Content, then move all topics folders and standalone topics into that folder. Put the favicon in the root of the Content Explorer. Then in the target, enable the option that says "Do not use 'Content' folder in output". When you build the output, that will leave the favicon at the root with default.htm and all of your topics are in the subfolder you made called Content.

The manual alternative to the above is to copy the favicon to the output folder after building but before publishing. You'd have to do that every time before you published.

[dmcleod]

This is strange. Neither Chrome, Firefox, or Safari will automatically grab the favicon from the websites root for me (not in the webhelp or in any other websites I manage). It requires a line of code to work.

Also, adding the favicon to the root of content folder doesn't actually pull it to the correct place, since it needs to be in the root of default.htm. This also requires that I switch off "exlcude content not linked directly or indirectly from the target" in order for it to be pulled, and my project is massive, so this is simply not an option.

I'm not sure what you meant by "additional portion" that you suggest adding to the header. Also, I'm not sure if adding it to the masterpage would help, since webhelp outputs don't have masterpages.

[RamonS]

From the Wikipedia article, the blip of code would be this one:

Code: Select all

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://example.com/myicon.ico" />

Master pages just for print? Maybe you mean Page Layouts? I checked the help and found this:
http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... _Pages.htm

You'd need to edit the source in a text editor.

[dmcleod]

Yup I was confusing pagelayouts with masterpages. That should work. Not sure I like moving the entire project around (I'm one of many people who works in the source, so things get touchy) so that the favicon outputs to the right directory, but this does save me the hassle of manually putting that code snippet in everytime. Thanks!

[dmcleod]

I'll probably just write a batch script for windows to auto-copy the favicon to the correct location every time I do a build, for anyone else who was following and interested.