Slowness with the keyword index on Webhelp

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bruno.stivicevic
Posts: 134
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:50 am
Location: Milan

Slowness with the keyword index on Webhelp

Unread post by bruno.stivicevic »

Hi,

my help project is experiencing an annoying slowness when users access to the keyword index in Webhelp.

Everytime the user click the keyword index tab (arriving from the Table of contents, or from the full-text search tab), the index is reloaded and there's a 10-seconds delay before the user can start to type a keyword to find content.

This happens on every access in the session, and it's quite annoying and causes a lot of 'dead time' in Webhelp.

I checked the gn4_kwindex.htm - its size is 1,9Mb, it contains 17,800 keyword lines (example: <option value="fpa_zoompagefite.htm">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;pages by entering zoom value</option>), between <div id="keyword_list_div"> and </select> statements. I reckon it's a big help project, and the number of keywords is quite high, but as there's a need that all of them are available in the common index, the modularity split in more projects is not an option.

There's also a CHM version of the documentation that doesn't show any lag when accessing the index, but being 290Mb of size and updated on daily basis, it is not really appropriate for everyday download for most of users - they prefer to access the Webhelp, but then there's a problem with the keyword index, explained previously.

Any ideas how to work around this?

Thanks
Bruno

PS. I can attach the index htm if needed.
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Tim Green
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Re: Slowness with the keyword index on Webhelp

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Bruno,

There is no way around this with the standard HM templates because they only use a single iframe for the TOC, keyword index and search pane. When you switch between them the previous page is unloaded and the page you are switching to is loaded. This is fast as long as the page is smaller than the browser's cache limit, but if it is larger then it has to reload and re-initialize the page. The Premium Pack 2 WebHelp skins don't need to do this because they keep all three pages open in three separate iFrames, but you may not want to wish to use those. :?
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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bruno.stivicevic
Posts: 134
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:50 am
Location: Milan

Re: Slowness with the keyword index on Webhelp

Unread post by bruno.stivicevic »

I'd like to get the Premium Pack, how should I proceed? Apparently there's no link to buy just a Premium Pack?

Thanks
Bruno
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Martin Wynne
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Location: West of the Severn, UK

Re: Slowness with the keyword index on Webhelp

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Bruno,

Click the green button: http://www.helpandmanual.com/order.html
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bruno.stivicevic
Posts: 134
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:50 am
Location: Milan

Re: Slowness with the keyword index on Webhelp

Unread post by bruno.stivicevic »

Thanks!

Bruno Stivicevic
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