Themes not found

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alpaca
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

I am using D2H 2014.1.0.925, as well as MS Word 2016/32.

Over the years I have used several different standard themes--"Redmond, Sunny, Exite-Bike," etc. I have always been able to go to "Theme...Edit Theme" and pick from a list.

Now, however, whenever I click "edit theme" I get an error message saying "! An error occurred while running the theme designer server: The system cannot fine the file specified."

I have all the usual D2H files in C:\Users\alpac\Documents\My Doc-To-Help Projects

And all the theme folders (Cupertino, Overcast, etc.) are here: C:\Users\alpac\Documents\My Doc-To-Help Projects\Doc-To-Help\Themes\Common\NetHelp 2.0\css\jquery-ui

I believe this is the first time I've tried to change themes since re-installing D2H on a new computer about a year ago.

It would seem that D2H is looking for the files in the wrong place, but I don't know where it is looking or how to change that lookup.

Any help would be appreciated.
SKamprowski
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:25 am
Location: Germany

Re: Themes not found

Post by SKamprowski »

Hi,

Doc-To-Help might tell you the place where it expects your themes: It's to be found in the "Files" section of "Doc-To-Help Options" in the file menu. The address you find there points to a folder "Themes" which contains the subfolders you mention.
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
alpaca
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

Thank you, Dr. K. Unfortunately, that is not helpful. I had already checked that pointer, and it points to the location where the themes reside.

The D2H error message doesn't say what file(s) it cannot find, so I don't know what it is looking for. All the standard themes, my custom themes, as well as the jquery-ui files, seem to be in their proper locations.

Do you have any other ideas about what D2H might be looking for?

Thank you.
SKamprowski
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:25 am
Location: Germany

Re: Themes not found

Post by SKamprowski »

Hi,

Maybe there is a mix with some older parts in your (customized) theme subfolder. I suggest to start with a new customized theme folder location. Let D2H create it, and test it: means create a brand new theme in it. Then you may try to move YOUR content from the old theme folder to the new location. By doing this step by step you may find the part that causes your problem.
DO NOT COPY ANY THEME DELIVERED WITH YOUR CURRENT D2H VERSION FROM THE OLD LOCATION!
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
alpaca
Propeller Head
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

Thank you for your help.

I had already tried to create a new theme. When I do, I get the same error message as described above.
SKamprowski
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:25 am
Location: Germany

Re: Themes not found

Post by SKamprowski »

Hi,

did you create a new folder for your customized themes BEFORE your last try? If you've overseen this please test it as described.

If there is still no success, I suggest to check which version of Internet Explorer is installed on your PC and compare it with what is recommended for your D2H version.
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
alpaca
Propeller Head
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

Thank you for your help.

It is not possible to create a folder before creating the theme of the same name. The "ok" button in the "create new theme" dialog is greyed out as soon as you try to enter the name of an existing folder.

-----------------------------

I don't know if this will be helpful, but it's certainly interesting.

I was able to get my old computer working, and ran D2H. With apparently the same file structure and all the same names/options/folders, I was able to change the theme with no problem.

When I copied that D2H file to the new computer, and "rebuilt" the target, it worked fine, and used the new theme.

So D2H is finding the theme with no problem. Something about the edit/change process is broken, and I suspect it is NOT because any theme folders are missing. Maybe some other component of D2H is missing. ???

Thanks again for all your help.
alpaca
Propeller Head
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

After the last experiment, I decided to try one more.

I rename the existing "Themes" folder, and copied into its place the Themes folder from the old computer (where the problem does not occur).

So I now have the exact structure of the Themes folder from a known-to-be-working environment.

And I get EXACTLY the same error message (noted above).

I consider this likely proof of my suspicion noted above that perhaps D2H is failing because of a missing system folder or program, not a theme-related folder.
SKamprowski
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:25 am
Location: Germany

Re: Themes not found

Post by SKamprowski »

Hi Alpaca,

what version of Internet Explorer is installed in the environment where Theme Designer does not work??
BTW: System requirements for D2H 2014V1 do not tell that this version works with Office 2016. So I suggest to start a test with other results that you may need.
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
alpaca
Propeller Head
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

I have Internet Explorer version 11 installed on my computer, but it has--as far as I know--no relationship with D2H. All my D2H results are displayed in Chrome. I occasionally use IE just to make sure everything looks right.

------------------------------------

I am thinking that perhaps I will re-install D2H from scratch. Do you think that would be a worthwhile / productive exercise? I have many (20 or 30) D2H projects properly configured and working now, so re-installing is not without some risk. But I'm willing to give it a try if we think it might help solve the Theme Designer problem.
alpaca
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

Another thing that I forgot to mention until now is that I am using Windows 10 and therefore OneDrive. All of my D2H projects are in OneDrive folders, NOT in C:\Users\alpac\Documents\My Doc-To-Help Projects. Everything works fine except my biggest and most complex D2H project, which I had to move to \documents\... in order to make it work. But I wonder if Theme Designer could be looking for something that is "hard coded" to \documents\ ?
alpaca
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Joined: Fri May 13, 2016 10:20 am

Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

Dr. K--

Is there any kind of log file that we could look at to see what D2H is looking for and failing to find?
alpaca
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Re: Themes not found

Post by alpaca »

I wasn't able to figure out what was wrong with my installation--why Theme Designer wouldn't work--but I did find a work-around.

I decided to re-install my copy of D2H, which is version 2014.1.0.925. I am running the latest version of Windows 10, 64-bit, with MS Office 365 (Word 2016).

First, I made a copy of the folder "C:\Users\...\Documents\My Doc-To-Help Projects."

Second, I ran the D2H installation program. When asked if I wanted to unintall or repair, I chose "Repair."

The installation/repair ran very quickly. As expected, it created a new folder "C:\Users\...\Documents\My Doc-To-Help Projects."

I copied all of my custom themes back into the new "C:\Users\...\Documents\My Doc-To-Help Projects."

I've done a fair amount of testing, and everything appears to work as expected. Including the Theme Designer, which now works perfectly and as expected.

I'm a happy camper!

And most sincere thanks to Dr. Sabine Kamprowski for the help and ideas provided here on the forum and also in a few private messages.

I'm planning to update to the latest version of Doc-to-Help soon, but I'm happy that I'm not being forced to by a problem.

Ty Griffin
San Luis Obispo, California
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