TOC/Index/Search Content Does not display in Vista

[dsch_tw]

Following a procedure learned on this forum, my WebHelp Plus output's TOC/Index/Search pane content succeeds in opening on Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional.
Unfortunately, the pane's content remains blank and Search yields no result when our application is running on Windows Vista.

Please tell me how TOC/Index/Search can display correctly in Vista. This is a show-stopper.

I'm producing output with Flare 4.2 on Windows XP Professional SP3.

Thank you,
David

David Schor
Technical Writer
Afcon Software and Electronics
Mobile: 054 478 8253
davids@afcon-inc.com
dsch.tw@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschortw

[RamonS]

Do I assume right that this with IE as browser? If yes, which version? Also, which server do you use to host the content. Is that IIS or Apache? Or do you load the help from the local drive?

[dsch_tw]

Hi Ramon,

The Help opens in IE7, the server is IIS, the help opens from the application and resides on the server, yet the problem remains the same from the client and server application. In Server 2003 and XP Professional, the navigational pane displays correctly.

I appreciate any help that's out there.

Thanks,
David

David Schor
Technical Writer
Afcon Software and Electronics
Mobile: 054 478 8253
davids@afcon-inc.com
dsch.tw@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschortw

[RamonS]

Well, at least for the sake of ruling out things I propose you try a different browser (Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome) to make sure that it is a not an IE specific problem, because then you can't really do much from the project end unless the reason for failure can be found to something specific in the project.
If that doesn't give any clues, build the sample project and drop it into the server and see if that works better. If it does, then this may hint to something being out of whack in your project, if it still doesn't work, it is either still a browser issue or a problem with the web server.
If that doesn't yield any insight I recommend to grab the latest copy of XAMPP from apachefriends.org and run the WebHelp off a real web server (sorry, but IIS is a kludge). If that still doesn't make a difference you can be quite certain that there is something in your project that trips things up.

You may also check the server logs first before getting the big tool box, maybe there is something on the server side that keeps the server from delivering what the WebHelp needs. IIRC the content of the tabs comes from XML files, maybe some server directive states to do something different with XML files. Also, I have come across cases where IIS rewrites the HTML on the way out (typically to make it look crappy in non-IE browsers), there is a chance that this interferes with WebHelp, but I somewhat doubt that.

[dsch_tw]

Hi all (and especially Ramon who answered me last time),

Back to this issue again. As suggested, I plunked the Flare sample project in with the app's help files on the server running on Vista, and all TOC/Index/Search (basic) worked. In the latest compilation of my WebHelpPlus project, the TOC and Index now appear but the Search still does not work.

So perhaps there's a target setting that I missed or enabled (when I wasn't supposed to), or something else... any ideas please?

Thanks very much,
David

[dsch_tw]

I finally succeeded in bringing up a complete Help from a server running Vista. I made WebHelp output instead of WebHelpPlus. We can soldier on without the "advanced search features" as long as we have the basic capability.
From our client, I can now open up and receive the full TOC/Index/Search (basic) functionality from the server.

In conclusion, I don't know if it's exclusively a Vista problem, or if Madcap can improve any various output capabilities in order to provide full functionality on server/client applications. However, it would be nice if the future contains more options.

All the best,
David

David Schor
Technical Writer
Afcon Software and Electronics
Mobile: 054 478 8253
davids@afcon-inc.com
dsch.tw@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidschortw

[RamonS]

Did you submit a feature request? If not, you should.

[kashby]

I'm in a similar situation now with Windows 7 (Vista ++).

What I'm told is that IS doesn't link up with WebHelpPlus, and that there's no way to make it work on that platform. This is also a showstopper for me, as I'm working with a KB that is also portable (on XP). As soon as we drop it onto a Windows 7 box, the TOC and Index die. This is a major issue, since I use the AutoSearch and AutoMerge folders to pump in a mountain of additional information.

I guess the idea was that you could compile your project on a Vista box, but it wouldn't work until you posted it on a Win 2003 server.

Very disappointing.

[RamonS]

W7 has a newer IIS version, which is maybe why it doesn't work. All I can tell you is complain to MadCap.

[kashby]

Already ahead of you. "You'll get an email if/when engineering gets around to look at this issue." However, I'm still hopeful. Two of my previous show stoppers were on the top 5 list of bug fixes for the last release of Flare.

Ignoring this issue could really cripple MadCap. I hope they will take it seriously.

[RamonS]

I am sure they will, but given all the insane amount of issue we have here with Windows 7 it might take a while. I just hope we can charge that to Microsoft. The "enhancements" that they put in are a major pain in the you know where and really do not accomplish much - other than to make everyone's lives miserable.