Opera 11 and WebHelp?

[kevinmcl]

If you have WebHelp on a CD/DVD or on a file system (not served by a web server), are you able to view it properly in Opera 11?

I'm seeing the same problem that I've had with Google Chrome for the past year-or-so. Empty frames with no ToC or topic content.

Previous Opera versions seemed to work fine with my Flare-produced WebHelp.

The current version of Opera doesn't open my current WebHelp (from Flare 7), nor WebHelp that I created 2 years ago with earlier Flare.

Using Opera, I opened a link provided by Lisa in an earlier thread http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... lopers.htm and that worked fine... first with the "naked" topic and the "open with navigation" link, and then with the navigation panel summoned. But that's WebHelp served by a web server. My customers aren't doing it that way. They're just viewing it with a browser from the CD or from their local hard disk, or from a file server in their intranet.

Is it just me? Or are we losing browsers that we can suggest to customers?
So far, IE, Firefox, and Safari still work.... touch wood...

ALSO, when I raised the issue with respect to Chrome (many months ago) on the Techwr-l list, some people claimed that they were able to view WebHelp-on-DVD just fine in Chrome... but theirs had been published from a different HAT - Help & Maual - not from Flare. No clue if that's true or if (once true) would still be true.

Or I could just be having a bad day and it'll all work fine tomorrow.

- kevin

[LTinker68]

Windows, by default, has the option to view some types of content from the computer or CD/DVD disabled. When that's disabled and you try to run Flare WebHelp output using IE, you get the yellow warning bar. The workaround for that is to enable MOTW in the Flare target so that you can view the help from the local computer or media drive. Firefox and Chrome don't have the problem either way, so MOTW has not affect on them. I'm guessing Opera doesn't either, but it might have a different security mechanism that's enabled (or disabled) by default that causes the problem. (I don't use Opera, so I'm guessing.) You could try it with MOTW enabled in the target, but you might have to check the security options in Opera to see if there's one that might be causing the problem. It could be a new option, since you didn't have the problem with previous versions of Opera.

[Judith]

Hi Kevin, I'm having the same problem with Opera 11 installed locally. Flare 7 has fixed the problem with the latest version of Chrome. Safari 5, Firefox 4 and IE8 seem to be OK. I haven't tested IE9 yet, as it doesn't seem to work with lots of web sites (including major retailers).

I submitted a bug report yesterday (7th April).

Judith

[Judith]

I've had the reply from Technical Support and it is a bug:

"Dear Judith,



Thank you for contacting MadCap Support. This issue is produced by a security setting in the Opera 11 version, it only affects the outputs when they are viewed locally.
I have passed this issue to our developers, the current bug number is 43511. Hopefully, the next version of Flare will address this issue."

Hope this helps.

Judith

[kevinmcl]

Hmm.

I'm not quite clear on how useful that would be.

If you change something about WebHelp, and a broken browser becomes unbroken for WebHelp produced thereafter, that's an improvement, but most of the problem remains.

Basic WebHelp hasn't changed much in years.

Like my own employer, I expect that many companies have been issuing WebHelp with their products for years and years.
A tweak to Flare 8 would still leave Opera and Chrome broken for all the existing WebHelp that's in the field.

I think that what's needed most is a "political" initiative to persuade Google and Opera to unbreak their browsers for WebHelp... either under-the-hood, or via a setting IN THE BROWSER about which we can inform our customers.

Here's the nut of the problem:

a) Customers receive a product with a version of WebHelp. They don't change that for years. That version of help supports the version of product that they have qualified and purchased.
b) Customers update to newer versions of browsers all the time.
c) Most companies would not roll back a corporate-wide roll-out of an updated version of their officially supported browser, just because a handful of employees suddenly couldn't access the Help for one piece of equipment or software.

So a real fix needs to be at the browser. Second-best is a fix that modifies WebHelp.

My three-point-nine-three cents (adjusted for inflation).

- kevin

[i-tietz]

Most companies would not roll back a corporate-wide roll-out of an updated version of their officially supported browser, just because a handful of employees suddenly couldn't access the Help for one piece of equipment or software.

True.
But: You could install another browser - e.g. Firefox.
Because: Your IT department is responsible for you being able to work with current software ...
The jerks in your IT department are used to find workarounds for all sorts of bugs. And they're not, they're buggy themselves.

[kevinmcl]

All true, but it's not MY local IT dept.

It's my customers' IT departments.

And the customers of all the other companies that provide WebHelp.

Basically, it's an inconvenience on them.

It's not nice to inconvenience one's customers. They didn't have to buy from you.

In my case, many customers have extremely strict security policies, so they qualify a tool and then they want to stick to it, or face hell-ish paperwork to change it. That would include browsers.

- k

[i-tietz]

You also have system and hardware requirements, right? The browser you need for reading help is the same category.
E.g.:
You're not producing softwar efor Win95 anymore, right? You told your customers the next update wouldn't run unde rWin95 anymore. Believe me: That caused more "inconvienience" than telling them what browser they need.