Context-sensitive help and global project linking

[a__g]

Hello,

We're using global project linking for our help materials, and I'm trying to figure out how to set up the context-sensitive help. We've created several subject-based projects,which contain the help content, and client projects, which will be customized by linking to some of the subject-based projects as needed.

We want to include CSH, so I set up the alias and header files in the subject-based projects. I made the starting value in each project unique, and I assigned topics to each identifier. Then I imported a few header and alias files from different subject-based projects into the client project, and that's where I'm stuck.

In each alias file, I moved the identifiers to the same header file (created in the client project). I also associated an alias file (created in the client project) with the WebHelp target. The identifiers and values appear properly in the header file, but when I test the CSH, all the identifiers do not appear.

I want the identifiers to retain their unique values and the assigned topics from the subject-based projects; I don't want to manually add this information in each client project. What's the best way to set up CSH in a global project linking structure?

Thanks!

[wgaffga]

Any responses/answers? I have the same problem.

[a__g]

I haven't had any responses yet.

[NorthEast]

Do you need individual alias files in each of your subject-based projects?

You could just set up a single 'master' alias file, which you use for all client projects.
This should work, provided that:
- All your alias identifiers and values are unique.
- The alias file links are the same for all client projects; i.e. an alias isn't linked to different topics for different client projects.

It doesn't matter if a particular client project imports all of the subject-based projects, the 'master' alias file would include the entries required for all the topics that have been imported, and will just show build errors for alias entries linked to topics that don't exist (which haven't been imported).

To create the 'master' alias file, you'd need to set up a 'master' project that imports all of your subject-based projects. You can open your subject-based project alias files in a text editor, and copy/paste the content into the 'master' alias file. The header files don't need to be merged this way, you can just copy them to the master project.

This 'master' alias file would have to be updated in this 'master' project. You could then copy the 'master' alias to your client projects by using either a project import, or copying it as an External Resource.

[a__g]

Thanks for the help, Dave! I'll give that a try.