Preserving TOC context when calling context sensitive help

[tekwrtr71]

Hi all,
I've got a help system with about 40 CSH topics, which are also pages in my TOC. (At most of my jobs in the past, we opted to exclude the CSH topics from the overall help system, but my new boss wants them accessible from TOC and from the application.)

I've worked with my developer to call up the CSH topics and they work fine. However, he is only calling the help topic itself, rather than the whole tri-pane with the TOC and the accordion tabs.

What I'm hoping is that there is a way to launch the whole tri-pane, showing the context-sensitive help topic and it's context within the TOC. I know I've seen it done in the past with a .CHM, but I've got no experience doing so with WebHelp. Frankly, I don't even know if it can be done.

Any info is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[Madcap Guru]

In Flare's help file checkout connecting Webhelp to an application it shows how to do a csh call that opens with a TOC pane

[tekwrtr71]

Thanks, Rick. Okay, I've found that topic. However, I see nothing about a TOC pane specifically. Am I missing something?

[LTinker68]

You're basically calling the default_CSH.htm page with the topic ID or filename (whichever method you choose) appended to the URL. You have to include the default_CSH.htm and default_Left.htm pages along with the default.htm page wherever you're going to host the help. Default_CSH.htm and Default_Left.htm are used for CSH calls. Default.htm is used if the user launches the help manually (or if you run it programmatically but without specifying a topic ID).

[Madcap Guru]

IF you use a standard CSH call, then it will open with the TOC pane,

[tekwrtr71]

Thanks to you both for the help. One last thing... I'm using a skin rather than default. Does that mean we'd call SkinName_CSH?

[LTinker68]

No. The skin name would be appended to the CSH call. If you do a search in the Flare help on CSH it'll come up with some topics, one of which has several examples of how to make a CSH call. I believe there are a couple of examples with the skin name in the call. You'd still use default_CSH.htm to make the CSH call, but you'd pass the skin name as a parameter.

BTW, default_CSH.htm may be called something else if you A) specified a different name for the output file in the target or B) if you started the project using one of the Flare template projects that uses a different name than default for the output. For instance, one of them creates output files called ApplicationHelp.htm, ApplicationHelp_CSH.htm, and ApplicationHelp_Left.htm. So make sure you pick the correct file.

[tekwrtr71]

Working like a charm. Thanks, Lisa and Rick.