Index fonts and skins (Russian language)

[scottpfen]

I have been compiling some Russian translations of our Help.
One problem has been the stretched font that appears in the index; the TOC is normal in appearance.
I can't figure out how to control the fonts in the index, although the Russian text displays normally in every topic.
Exactly which skin controls the appearance of the index?
I tried the special Russian language skin (under Tools>Manage Language Skins) and succeeded in changing the text of the "See Also" buttons to "XXXXXX". Although this skin is supposed to work primarily for WebHelp, it seems to work for HTML Help as well.
But I couldn't alter the index font, no matter which skin I tried, whether the normal skin that we use in every project, or the Russian language skin.
I did make sure to set everything I could find to Russian, Windows included.

[LTinker68]

I can't figure out how to control the fonts in the index, although the Russian text displays normally in every topic.

Did you specify a font-family and font size in the skin editor under the styles tab?

[scottpfen]

Lisa:

Yes. I was changing the fonts in the style section of the project skin. But I also changed the text of the "See Also" buttons in the language skin.

I can't seem to change the index fonts.

[LTinker68]

Did you delete (clean) the output folder before building? Sometimes changes to the skin don't seem to be reflected in the output unless the output folder has been cleaned before the next build.

[KevinDAmery]

Hang on a second, folks. Remember that this is HTML help we're talking about here, not WebHelp. Skins in HTML help only affect the contents of the help pane, not the TOC, Index, Glossary, etc. Those other areas are controlled by the HTML help application in Windows. The only way to change those areas is to change the Windows desktop appearance.

As for the languages, afaik the HTML help compiler uses the native language of your Windows installation, *not* the language you currently have the system set to. In other words, if you use a US English copy of Windows, it doesn't matter what language you set it to use in the UI, when it compiles it compiles in English. So to get Russian, you would need an actual Russian copy of Windows installed on the PC.

(Before anyone asks, these are not Flare-specific limitations. Flare uses Microsoft Help Workshop to compile HTML help, so it isn't something Madcap has access to to change.)

[Pete Lees]

Hi, Scott,

One option may be to set the required font by editing your project settings outside Flare, with HTML Help Workshop.

If you open your HTML Help project (.hhp) file in HTML Help Workshop and then click the Change Project Options button at the top of the Project pane, you can select the font on the General tab of the Options dialog box. The selected font is used in all the tabs of the navigation pane.

Notionally at least, HTML Help Workshop also provides the facility to select a font for exclusive use in the Index tab. Open the index (.hhk) file in HTML Help Workshop, click the Index Properties button at the top of the left pane, and then select the font on the General tab. However, I've never succeeded in getting this to work; the selected font is just ignored. Maybe you'll have more luck.

Kevin, you wrote:

Skins in HTML help only affect the contents of the help pane, not the TOC, Index, Glossary, etc. Those other areas are controlled by the HTML help application in Windows. The only way to change those areas is to change the Windows desktop appearance.

Perhaps it's the case that Flare doesn't expose all the customisation settings that are available to users of (say) HTML Help Workshop, as the navigation pane and toolbar of the HTML Help viewer are actually fairly customisable. So, there are options with which you can tinker with fonts and font sizes, change TOC icons and styles, and so on.

As for the languages, afaik the HTML help compiler uses the native language of your Windows installation, *not* the language you currently have the system set to. In other words, if you use a US English copy of Windows, it doesn't matter what language you set it to use in the UI, when it compiles it compiles in English. So to get Russian, you would need an actual Russian copy of Windows installed on the PC.

To my knowledge, the situation is a little more straightforward than this. So long as you first set the default system locale of your build machine to match that of the help file on which you're working, you should be able to compile a non-English help file on a machine running English Windows. Of course, the resulting help file will have English toolbar and navigation pane labels, but that's a run-time issue rather than a compile-time issue; when transferred to a French Windows machine, the same file will have a French UI.

Pete

[KevinDAmery]

Thanks for the clarifications, Pete (always good to have an HTML Help expert around....)