Cannot shortcut WebHelp from network drive

[32ndFlava]

I am having a problem with viewing the WebHelp from a network drive.

I have placed the WebHelp folder on a network drive in the office and then created a shortcut for employees to access it and it works fine. I then put the folder on a customer support box that our software runs off of. The problem is, that it will not run if I put the folder on a network drive (path being \\Random\Random\WebHelp)that I access from the support box. It can only be run if the path has a pysical drive at the beginning (C:\).

Am I doing something wrong here? This is WebHelp, not WebHelpPlus. Do I need to use IIS to set this up? I have also shared the folder and given everyone read access. I also tried mapping the drive to the support box and it still doesnt work.

For clarification sake, we have a support box at each of our customers offices. This support box lets us controll the SQL databases and the network drives that our software accesses from the customers computers. In the future we will be integrating the WebHelp with our product so that you can pull up the WebHelp from our application using aliases.

[RamonS]

What exactly does not work? It doesn't do anything? Works partially? Gives an error message? My first guess is a rights issue, but it could also be caused by the way the shortcut gets handled by the browser. Which browser is in use? Does it work with a different browser? How about if you use a file browser to browse to the share (not mapping a drive) and then open the default file? Does that work?
A a short term workaround you may just install a small web server on the support box, for example lighttp (http://www.lighttpd.net/), but there are plenty of others. A web server is not necessary, but it surely will work better.

[32ndFlava]

When I click on the Default.htm file in the WebHelp main folder it opens IE but just gives a page error. The error is the default one saying the site could not be found. I could try installing a different browser, but I will want it to work with IE since that is what our customers commonly use.
What do you mean by " How about if you use a file browser to browse to the share (not mapping a drive) and then open the default file?"
We will be using IIS at some point but have not installed it yet, I will try the free one first.

[RamonS]

When I click on the Default.htm file in the WebHelp main folder it opens IE

is what I meant with

"How about if you use a file browser to browse to the share (not mapping a drive) and then open the default file?"

Did you check the number of files? Maybe a file is missing. Besides that, check the Internet Options and for testing purposes only make them the least restrictive. You can crank them up again after it worked at least once. Also, check if JavaScript is allowed to run.

[LTinker68]

Also, check the shortcut itself. As RamonS mentioned, open the default.htm file using the File > Open option in the browser. When you do, the browser may automatically change the URL. In other words, if the file is at C:\HelpProjects\TestProject\Default.htm, the URL may change to something like file:///C:/HelpProjects/TestProject/Default.htm (note the "file" and reversed slashes). It may depend on which browser you're using, though, and which version of the browser, so test it on a few versions of IE to make sure they all support the same URL structure.

You don't need IIS to view the file, but using IIS would allow you to create a site with a URL something like http://help/testproject.

[RamonS]

But IIS is such a pain to configure and maintain...that's why I recommended a small, lightweight server for now. Once going full scale use a real web server like Apache. IIS is just like a jack in the box. It looks funny, has a crank, may play music, and eventually something pops up (typically an unintelligible error message).

[32ndFlava]

I had one of our IT gurus over working on this for over half an hour and could not figure it out. He thinks it might be permissions but he set the security to "Everything" for the folder and it still wouldn't display. I will continue to trouble shoot this.

Did you check the number of files? Maybe a file is missing. Besides that, check the Internet Options and for testing purposes only make them the least restrictive. You can crank them up again after it worked at least once. Also, check if JavaScript is allowed to run.

I copied the folder from the desktop of the support box to the network drive. It works fine on the support box so all of the files are there.

Also, check the shortcut itself. As RamonS mentioned, open the default.htm file using the File > Open option in the browser. When you do, the browser may automatically change the URL. In other words, if the file is at C:\HelpProjects\TestProject\Default.htm, the URL may change to something like file:///C:/HelpProjects/TestProject/Default.htm (note the "file" and reversed slashes). It may depend on which browser you're using, though, and which version of the browser, so test it on a few versions of IE to make sure they all support the same URL structure.

I am using IE 8.0.7600.16385. I tried doing the whole File > Open option in the browser but it still wouldnt load and the URL didn't change.

But IIS is such a pain to configure and maintain...that's why I recommended a small, lightweight server for now. Once going full scale use a real web server like Apache. IIS is just like a jack in the box. It looks funny, has a crank, may play music, and eventually something pops up (typically an unintelligible error message).

Unfortunately our company uses IIS in their support boxes so I am stuck using it. I will be attempting to try setting up the WebHelp today in IIS and will let you know the results.

I appreciate all of your help and will let you know what I find out!

[Madcap Guru]

Any chance you have mark of the web enabled in your output?

[32ndFlava]

Well folks I finally figured it out!

After looking at the thread below, I added the WebHelp location to my list of Trusted Sites in IE and it is now showing up! I am now going to see if this needs to be done to all users computers, or if there is a fix that we can do from the arm share to fix this!

Thanks for everyones help and responses!

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =9&t=11855