Questions to WinHelp link convertion

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Peter4711
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Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Peter4711 »

Within a .NET port of an extensive VS6 software package, we have to upgrade the WinHelp online documentation. The documentation consists of 8 WinHelp projects containing several thousand topics with extensive use of A-keys and cross-project references.

I'm currently evaluating Help+Manual and imported all hpj files into seperate H+M projects as well as one single H+M project. The import process itself worked like a charm, the data presentation of the H+M Editor looks good and the published HTLMHelp literally looks like the old WinHelp, including all bitmaps.

Links work within CHM the way designed, with one exception: The documentation contains some large tables, where certain entries are link destinations. All hard-coded links to these "non-topic" destinations simply produce "This program cannot display the webpage ". Reason unknown so far.

However, I did experience problems with PDF publications, which do neither support ALinks nor cross-project links. While there problably is a solution for cross-project links, I am lost with those ALinks. Converting them to hard-coded links will be a hell of a task with several thousand link destinations and a multiple number of referencing link lists, which are currently calculated by Microsoft's ALink. Does Help+Manual provide any help doing this, either by providing Information about existing links and references, or better by automatic convertion of those ALinks (either as product feature or via API)?

Thank you for any support, which would even better the positive user experience so far.
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Tim Green
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Re: Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Peter and welcome to the forum!
The documentation contains some large tables, where certain entries are link destinations. All hard-coded links to these "non-topic" destinations simply produce "This program cannot display the webpage ".
When you say "link destinations", do you mean named anchors? If these imported correctly you should see the destinations as red anchor icons in the topic editor.
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Alexander Halser
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Re: Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Alexander Halser »

Hello Peter,

Would it be possible to receive an example file to test it? What I would need is the original Winhelp source files including all depending files. Please send them to: alexander.halser (@) ec-software.com and also include some hints about which topic links do not work, so that we can easily spot them.

It's hard to tell from here, what went wrong and if the problem could be technically solved. When you export a CHM file from the imported project, does the compiler log list any problems/errors?

The transition from HLP to CHM/HTML can be limited, it really depends on the source. First, "destinations" in Winhelp did have absolute names, wheras in HTML the destination consists of a page id (mytopic.html) and, optionally, an anchor id (mytopic.html#anchor). Help+Manual tries to resolved these absolute destinations and convert them into a HTML-like notation. But there's more to Winhelp that can cause incompatibilities. It was very common in Winhelp to use macros for links. A macro could even call a particular destination, such as JumpId(mydestination) or JI(mydesitination). Help+Manual understands the most common macros and either resolves them (so that it becomes a plain topic link) or converts them to HTML Help macros (which, unfortunately, only work in CHM files but not in Webhelp).

That's why I would like to take a look at the source files in order to answer your question better.
Alexander Halser
Senior Software Architect, EC Software GmbH
Peter4711
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Re: Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Peter4711 »

Thanks for the fast reply.
Automatic conversion did not work in my case. The original RTF document declares link destinations, with Word showing tooltips like "# HID_FILE_NEW". The H+M editor does not show the anchor symbol at corresponding positions. The referencing links are shown with red background and tooltip "Topic link ... HID_FILE_NEW ... NO VALID TOPIC MATCH".
Meanwhile, I had added an anchor HID_FILE_NEW at the position, which is displayed as a red anchor symbol with tooltip "ID=HID_FILE_NEW". During publication I still get an error message "references an undefined topic: "HID_FILE_NEW"". Adding "HID_FILE_NEW" as anchor keyword doesn't solve that condition. I'm somehow stuck.
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Tim Green
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Re: Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Peter,

Please do send Alex the examples he asked for at the address he showed in his posting above. This will make it possible to figure out what the problem is here much much faster. There may be a number of reasons for the anchors you are adding manually not working, but we really need to have a look at the source to be able to analyze it properly. :)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Peter4711
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Re: Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Peter4711 »

Examples were mailed last night including involved RTF/HLP samples and resulting H+M database/CHM.
Thank you.
Peter4711
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Re: Questions to WinHelp link convertion

Unread post by Peter4711 »

All conversion problems were resolved, due to competent help from Alexander.
WinHelp to HTMLHelp in record time, as provided by H&M.
Thanks a lot, all is good.
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