Too many browser windows (silly newbie question)

[mamarachel]

Is there any way with context-sensitive WebHelp to prevent littering the screen with browser windows? Each time the user accesses the help from the help links on the website, a new browser opens. Is it possible to open the help system in a new browser window the first time the user clicks the link for help, then display the help pages opened by subsequent accesses in the same browser window? The developer said that he can create javascript to do this, but is there a setting in Flare that I should be using?

Thanks for helping.

[andyr]

I think this is resolved via the target="" attribute on your A tags. This controls the name of the window to which the links open.

Although I have not experience your exact scenario, I expect that populated this attribute with the same value should have the desired results for you.

In Flare this is controlled via the Target Frame drop-down list on the Insert Hyperlink dialog.

Hope that helps - if not I'm sure someone will chip in.

thanks

[RamonS]

In case that web site is PHP enabled you can also use my PHP functions for CSH that are posted here.

[LTinker68]

I think this is resolved via the target="" attribute on your A tags. This controls the name of the window to which the links open.

That only works with internal links. If they're making a CSH call then the call is coming from outside the help, and if the CSH call doesn't specify the destination window then the browser will react the way the user has it configured (e.g., open new links in a new tab instead of the current tab).

[mamarachel]

I think this is resolved via the target="" attribute on your A tags. This controls the name of the window to which the links open.

That only works with internal links. If they're making a CSH call then the call is coming from outside the help, and if the CSH call doesn't specify the destination window then the browser will react the way the user has it configured (e.g., open new links in a new tab instead of the current tab).

So does that mean that, if we want to control the destination window, that it would be the developer of the application who would need to specify the destination as part of the CSH call? Does MadCap Flare provide anything canned that a developer could use?

[LTinker68]

So does that mean that, if we want to control the destination window, that it would be the developer of the application who would need to specify the destination as part of the CSH call?

Yes. Although technically I suppose you could put an onLoad event in the body tag of the topic, but that would also run when the entire help was launched, so it's better to have your programmer control it.

Does MadCap Flare provide anything canned that a developer could use?

No. But check the help (search on CSH) -- there are some examples and more info.

[reversole]

In FireFox (and other Mozilla browsers like SeaMonkey) there is a setting to get FireFox to deal with this issue.
This is under the preference/options Tab settings... exact wording changes from 1.5 to 2.0 to 3.0....
We use this under Linux to allow our application to keep only one browser window open.
We publish this information to our users as part of the setup information for our application.

Other browsers may have similar abilities, but we are cross platform (Linux, AIX, Solaris) and do not care about IE.