How to use CSH alias when subprojects are merged via TOC?

[jcoria]

For logistical purposes right now, I am having to use webhelp. I amalgamate the other sub-projects via linking through the TOC. Is there a away to have the sub-projects CSH viable? I have added an alias file and created some CSH for testing purposes, but they do not resolve. Is there a way to accomplish this?

JCoria

[Pete Lees]

Hi,

Does this Knowledge Base article help?

Setting up CSH for Merged Projects in WebHelp Outputs

Pete

[hans_hatton]

The knowledge base article "Setting up CSH for Merged Projects in WebHelp Outputs", which describes how to manually merge the alias files from the individual webhelp projects, has a note saying that it is only relevant to Flare Versions 1-3.

I have set up a master project (in Flare V5.0) with two subprojects attached through the master TOC, and have successfully published to a single area on a network drive.

Entering "t:\output\index.htm" in Internet Explorer successfully launches the merged help system.

But if I add a context ID from one of the subsystems, e.g. "t:\output\index.htm#1001", nothing happens and the IE status bar says "Done, but with errors on page".

I have made sure that the ID ranges in each of the subsystems is unique. The file "t:\output\data\Alias.xml" does not list the IDs of the subsystems. Have I missed a step somewhere?

[NorthEast]

But if I add a context ID from one of the subsystems, e.g. "t:\output\index.htm#1001", nothing happens and the IE status bar says "Done, but with errors on page".

Alias merging does work ok in v5, but note that your help call should be in the format - t:\output\index_CSH.htm#1001

I checked my projects, and the 'master' Alias.xml file doesn't include entries for subsystem projects, so that's normal.

[hans_hatton]

Tried 'index_CSH.htm#1005' and all I get is a blank page.

P.S. The CSH topic that ought be accessed is given by the following entry in "t:\output\Subsystems\ai\Data\Alias.xml':

<Map Name="AI_E005_Preview_Scheduled_Events" Link="Content/preview_scheduled_events.htm" ResolvedId="1005" />

How is this aliasing info supposed to flow through to the master project?

[NorthEast]

Hang on, if you're just typing that directly into internet explorer, then it will probably won't work.
The full URL would be - file://t:/output/index_CSH.htm#1005

[hans_hatton]

Sorry, I was just being terse - the actual URL in the browser is as follows, and all I get is a blank page as previously reported.

file:///T:/output/index_CSH.htm#1005

I am getting the impression that I may need to pursue this matter with tech. support. Does anyone reading this have a merged webhelp system with context-sensitive calls to topics in the the subsystems working?

[hans_hatton]

P.S. The following works

file:///T:/output/Subsystems/ai/ai_CSH.htm#1004

but then it only opens the "ai" project, not the full help system.

[NorthEast]

I am getting the impression that I may need to pursue this matter with tech. support. Does anyone reading this have a merged webhelp system with context-sensitive calls to topics in the the subsystems working?

Yep, I'd ask support.
I have no problem using CSH calls to topics in subsystem projects.

[Jeannie Marzonie]

I'm wondering if Hans got this issue resolved because I'm having the same issue. I have a subproject merged into a master project via the TOC and the CSH calls to the subproject do not work. We are planning to do several more subprojects merged into a master project so really need this to work. I use map ids for the CSH calls. My subproject's output files are named differently than the master project. I use Flare 5.01.

[hans_hatton]

Support managed to track down the issue in our case. At the time we were still only experimenting with the whole setup, and it turns out the reason the aliasing wasn't working was because we had not applied the same skin to all sub-projects. After doing that, everything worked fine.

[Jeannie Marzonie]

Yes, Support found the same thing with my projects. I had several skins in the core project (one for each product target so that I could change the title) and that was causing the CSH issue with the subproject. I went back to using one skin in the core project and now CSH works for the subproject.