Hi,
I've had a couple of users ask if there was a way to search for key terms within a help product across multiple projects. I currently have multiple projects that interrelate to some degree, but still need to have separate projects for each.
I've done some researching into this and I'm not sure if Help & Manual can do this. I'm thinking it might not be able to from what I've seen (short of combining the projects into one project), but maybe I missed a capability?
If there isn't a way for H&M to do this, might anyone know of any third-party programs that could search across multiple projects to find key words?
Searching across multiple projects
Moderators: Alexander Halser, Tim Green
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Re: Searching across multiple projects
Zoom indexer can scan multiple projects. A fairly simple what to get started is:droberts wrote:users ask ... to search for key terms within a help product across multiple projects... I'm not sure if Help & Manual can do this... maybe I missed a capability?
- Create a new output folder called "merged".
- Open C:\Users\Public\Documents\My HelpAndManual Projects\Examples\HTML5 Tricks\HTML5-and-CSS.hmxz.
- Project > Publish > 'Webhelp, No skin' to the "merged" folder replacing 'index.html' with something recognizable like \merged\html5-tricks.html
- Make sure that the flag 'Delete all files in output folder' is clear.
- Close HTML5-and-CSS.hmxz.
- Open C:\Users\Public\Documents\My HelpAndManual Projects\Examples\Feature Images\Feature Images.hmxz
- Once again Project > Publish > 'Webhelp, No skin' to the "merged" folder replacing 'index.html' with something recognizable like \merged\feature.html
- Tim Green
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Re: Searching across multiple projects
Hi D,
Simon's answer applies to published WebHelp on your web server. If your question refers to searching the source of multiple projects, that is a different matter. Help & Manual itself only searches in the current project. However, if you use the uncompressed .hmxp XML format (and you should, the benefits are large) then all your topics are stored as plain-text XML files. You can then use a multi-file search tool like PowerGrep or WinGrep, or an editor with multi-file search facilities like the excellent free Notepad++, to search all your topics in as many projects as you like.
Simon's answer applies to published WebHelp on your web server. If your question refers to searching the source of multiple projects, that is a different matter. Help & Manual itself only searches in the current project. However, if you use the uncompressed .hmxp XML format (and you should, the benefits are large) then all your topics are stored as plain-text XML files. You can then use a multi-file search tool like PowerGrep or WinGrep, or an editor with multi-file search facilities like the excellent free Notepad++, to search all your topics in as many projects as you like.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)
Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)
Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.