Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

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BL_N
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Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by BL_N »

I am not certain if the skins being provided on the gallery page are supported by MadCap or not, and so far as I can see, there is no contact information for the developer of them, so I'm posting here.

The Robin skin is the one my client has selected for use in their help system and I've run into an issue with it that I cannot seem to correct: The 'expand all' and 'collapse all' buttons in the top header do not seem to work. I've tried everything I can think of to get them active. I have also tried to remove them and cannot seem to manage this as well.

I notice the search box at the top of the form is for the current page only (but this is not easily understandable!). Could it be these two actions are also for the main page? If so, how the heck can I DISABLE/REMOVE them?

Thanks for any help!
"I" before "E" except after "C" or when sounded as "A" as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'.
LTinker68
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by LTinker68 »

I think the expand all and collapse all are for togglers and drop-down text and similar effects. If you're expecting them to be for the TOC, then I don't think that's their intention.

The search field in the toolbar is a "Quick Search" and is just for the currently-selected topic. The Search accordion button searches the entire help (all topics).

I don't include any of those icons in my toolbar. The Quick Search to me is, as you said, not intuitive that it's only for the current page, so I just leave it out. People expect a search to be for the entire site. And if the user wants to search on the current page, then the browser's own find feature will work, although you might want to include instructions on how to use it, for newbies who aren't familiar with the option. Likewise, the expand/collapse icons aren't intuitive either. I use togglers, and in pages where there are togglers, I have a "View all screenshots", for example, at the top of the page, and that does the same thing as the expand/collapse icons.

As for how to remove them... In the Project Organizer, double-click on the skin file, click on the WebHelp Toolbar tab, select "Enable Custom Layout", then move the icons you want from the right field to the left field. Just leave out the quick search and expand/collapse icons and any others that you don't want. You can also adjust the order that the icons appear in the toolbar, too.
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BL_N
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by BL_N »

Worked beautifully. Thank you. (For some reason, I thought I had custom layout enabled. Obviously, I need more coffee.)
"I" before "E" except after "C" or when sounded as "A" as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'.
Richard Ferrell
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by Richard Ferrell »

The Expand all and collapse all are for Toggler in your topic See this knowledge base article

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/Default_CSH.HTM#OUTW1005F
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BL_N
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by BL_N »

Yes, I have read up a bit more since the initial post. I like the functionality (and that of the current topic search), but the implementation is not intuitive; the assumption is that the expand and collapse functions apply to the TOC and the search is the 'same' as the full text one available from the navigation panel. Hovering over the icons doesn't indicate applicability to the current topic and while one can change that text, there's no real guarantee the user will pay attention to the hover statements... I'm uncertain how to indicate it (obviously placement doesn't do the trick, as I and quite a few here easily assumed incorrectly).

So, I removed them since confusing folks isn't the goal. (Ack. That reads much more brusque than intended.)

Related question -- why isn't there an 'expand all' and 'collapse all' function for the TOC? For that matter, why can't you force expansion of all topics on load? I know you can do so (somewhat) by setting the opening topic to a book (and thus, expand what's under it), but I'd think being able to expand all at whim (rather than click every dang book in the TOC) would be a bit of a given.

Hrm. Think I'll file an enhancement request for that one.

~wanders off muttering to herself~
"I" before "E" except after "C" or when sounded as "A" as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'.
NorthEast
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by NorthEast »

BL_N wrote:So, I removed them since confusing folks isn't the goal. (Ack. That reads much more brusque than intended.)
I also removed the quick search from my WebHelp, it confuses people and isn't terribly useful even if you understand what it does!
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by bbuchko »

I'm with BL_N. We need expand/collapse for the TOC (. Any of you MVP-types know if it's a feature Flare is planning? I'm gonna go file a feature request just in case, but it'd be cool to know anyway. :)
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BL_N
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by BL_N »

So far as I'm aware, the enhancement request page is a "squeaky wheel" tool.... IOW - if you think it's a good idea, submit it as an enhancement request. Personally, I intend to submit bookmarks to these topics. Seems more efficient. :twisted:
"I" before "E" except after "C" or when sounded as "A" as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh'.
Richard Ferrell
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Re: Robin Skin: Expand All and Collapse All not working

Post by Richard Ferrell »

Great Icon bbuchko

The More requests we get, The better chance we can add this to a future version of your favorite software.
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