How to send someone a link to a certain topic in WebHelp?

[beagley]

Newbie question, I think!

My support department wants to go into the WebHelp, find a topic that the person they are helping should read, and then send them that link in an e-mail.

Ideally, clicking the link would take them RIGHT to the topic, and have the TOC on the left sync so the user can see where they are and navigate to other topics.

Problem: Right now, the browser address just always shows the location of the WebHelp! How can Support grab the URL they need?

-d

[wclass]

You can usually get the full URL address by right-clicking on the TOC entry and copying the location (topic has to be in the TOC though).

But you should look at setting up CSH - Context Sensitive Help. For example, the Madcap knowledge base is set up in a way that lets you point directly to a page and include the TOC/Index frame for further browsing. For example, the following is a link to a topic about CSH:

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/Content/Fl ... ources.htm

but you can call the help system open up at the right page using the context map ID:

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_csh.htm#CSH1005F

This sort of thing is pretty easy to set up - you will have to assign an identifier to each topic in the help, and then the URL calls are made up of the base address followed by #identifier.

[beagley]

Thank you for your awesome response, Margaret.

I am a bit intimidated by the CSH stuff. It seems to have so many levels, and I find Madcap's How-Tos pretty inscrutable. (I avoid their online help systems, if I can.)

But I plan to tackle it soon, anyway. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

-d

[beagley]

Hey Margaret,
It looks like your suggestion pops open the individual topic, but not the Web Help itself.

I need a link that will cause WebHelp to open, the correct topic to be displayed, and the TOC to Sync.

Guess CSH will provide that?

Here goes...
-d

[LTinker68]

Margaret's first link opens just the topic. The second link opens the topic in the normal frameset (the full help).

[DurtyMat]

if you noticed, in the top left corner of the first link, you could open up the navigation ... if you needed it. i know my team played around with this and implemented it into our help systems so that if a single topic was accessed the user could open the navigation pane if they needed it .... if they just needed that topic they didnt have to load up all the other fancy stuff

[forfear]

And if we search hard enough, there might just be a JavaScript we could integrate and put into a master page so that each topic would have a

'E-mail this page'

or copy the URL straight to Windows Clipboard.

[JasperJay]

if you noticed, in the top left corner of the first link, you could open up the navigation ... if you needed it. i know my team played around with this and implemented it into our help systems so that if a single topic was accessed the user could open the navigation pane if they needed it .... if they just needed that topic they didnt have to load up all the other fancy stuff

DurtyMat, how did you implement the 'Open topic with navigation' link? That is exactly what I need in my pages. Did you use a Context Map ID? It doesn't look like it in the source. I do not particularly want to add identifiers for each of my already uniquely named topics. What did you add to your master page to insert that link?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[LTinker68]

It's an option you have to turn on in the WebHelp Setup screen of the Skin Editor.

[JasperJay]

Ah, got it.

Thank you Lisa.

[beagley]

Okay, I'm trying to set this up, finally.

It turns out that setting up identifiers is optional, according to this page:

http://webhelp.madcapsoftware.com/flare ... lopers.htm

So here's what I think my link should be:

Code: Select all

http://learn.pcc.com/default_csh.html#ContactPCCSupport.htm

And it doesn't work. (Yes, ContactPCCSupport.htm is my file name)

Any advice? I've tried changing the cases around (the help site said "Default_CSH", Margaret used lower-case in her example), to no avail.

-D

p.s.
Interesting. When I enter this:

Code: Select all

http://learn.pcc.com/Default_CSH.htm

It opens my WebHelp and changes the URL to this:

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http://learn.pcc.com/Default.htm#CSHID=undefined

So for fun I tried this:

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http://learn.pcc.com/Default.htm#CSHID=ContactPCCSupport.htm

But that just opened WebHelp.

Is MadCap help wrong, (i.e. are Map ID#s required for CSH), or am I simply confused by the syntax in their instructions (wouldn't be the first time). Here's the important part that I'm trying to decode:

PathToOutput/OutputFileName_CSH.htm?SearchString|FirstPick#MapID or TopicName.htm|SkinName

That's apparently all you need for a call, and a bunch of it is optional.

The real problem with this instruction is that it doesn't make the separators clear. (When do you need the ?, the |, and the #)

[LTinker68]

So here's what I think my link should be:

Code: Select all

http://learn.pcc.com/default_csh.html#ContactPCCSupport.htm

And it doesn't work. (Yes, ContactPCCSupport.htm is my file name)

Your link has a .html as the extension for the default page, but it should be .htm, which you discovered later in your post. I think there is an option to change what extension you use for the default page, but the default extension is .htm, not .html (those two extensions are not interchangeable).

Interesting. When I enter this:

Code: Select all

http://learn.pcc.com/Default_CSH.htm

It opens my WebHelp and changes the URL to this:

Code: Select all

http://learn.pcc.com/Default.htm#CSHID=undefined

Yeah, don't try to copy or use the URL after the page is loaded. There is Javascript code in the _CSH file and associated scripts that result in the URL being changed. So you can't just forward the URL as it appears after you've loaded a page via a CSH call.

Is MadCap help wrong, (i.e. are Map ID#s required for CSH)

I don't think they state anywhere that map ID numbers are required. They give you examples of using the topic file name or the map ID to make the call. You choose which options to use.

PathToOutput/OutputFileName_CSH.htm?SearchString|FirstPick#MapID or TopicName.htm|SkinName

The real problem with this instruction is that it doesn't make the separators clear. (When do you need the ?, the |, and the #)

They don't spell it out exactly, but it seems pretty explicit to me. You use the ? before a search string. You use the # before the map ID or topic file name. You use the | if you're going to load the topic into a skin other than the default skin. Your CSH call can have none of them, one of them, two of them, or all of them.

[beagley]

Hey Lisa!
Thanks as always for your quick reply!

You're right, I did have "html", foolishly... though I had also tried the correct variation.

But I was also making another mistake: the call requires a directory path to the topic file.

My final URL (for anyone searching on this problem) is below. This is the easiest way to do Context Sensitive Help from another page or a program or anywhere, IMHO:

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http://learn.pcc.com/Default_CSH.htm#OtherPCCResources/ContactPCCSupport.htm

Which for future reference (for me) is:

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BASEURL/PATHTOWEBHELP/Default_CSH.htm#PATHTOTOPICFILE/TOPICFILENAME.htm

So, for me, links like this are the way to go:

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http://learn.pcc.com/Default_CSH.htm#Partner/Checkin/CheckinIntro.htm

In hindsight, it makes PERFECT SENSE that I would need the full path from the root of the WebHelp-- Flare doesn't flatten. But somehow it never occurred to me!

I definitely still see the advantage of setting up CSH identifier numbers: making calls like this requires that the user knows the file structure *I* have used when organizing my 1000+ topic files. And if I slide folders around in the future, these calls will fail. But as a quick solution to handing out a CSH link, it works!

Thanks as always,
Douglas