Fully expanded keyword index?

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Martin Wynne
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Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Hi Tim,

In the V3 responsive skins, how do I set the keyword index to be always fully expanded? I have done this in my old PP1 skin and I really do prefer it. I know it makes the page 26 times longer, but most systems can scroll fast nowadays. Being able to browse through the index is always a good way to get the flavour of a book and its content -- I don't always have a specific keyword in mind. And when I do, clicking the A-Z links at the top can jump me to the required part of the page. At present you can't flick through the index without a lot of clicking on each letter heading.

regards,

Martin.
Tobias Escher
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Tobias Escher »

+1, but I remember Tim telling me it is impossible.
That is one of my biggest feature reuquests, too. I have countless support emails from users who say "the index is missing".
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Tim Green
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

This is currently restriction of how I've set it up to minimize memory use so that it works better on browsers on mobile devices. The full index isn't being shown because it is quite literally not there. The full index only exists in the compressed JSON form. The only HTML that is being rendered is what is visible, in the same way as with the table of contents. When a branch is hidden again it is also removed from the DOM.

In the standard version of WebHelp long indexes and tables of contents brought mobile browsers to their knees. This approach makes it possible to handle large indexes and TOCs and still maintain good responsiveness.

There have been a couple of messages like yours about this, and so I'm probably going to have to introduce an option to activate a full mode. It would not to be difficult to do in principle, but I need to think about this, because I need a way that will not break mobile mode. I'm going to be on holiday for a week from this weekend and it's on my to do list for the time when I return. 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Thanks Tim.

Is there a way to detect whether the Android device is using WiFi, or the 4G mobile signal?

If on WiFi it will be just as fast as desktop browsers, so could handle the full index. There are increasing numbers of public places with WiFi available, and in offices, on trains, etc.

My Android tablet is as fast as my Desktop pc when on WiFi.

Have a good well-earned holiday. :)

regards,

Martin.
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Tim Green
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Martin,

It's not so much a question of connection speed as the amount of memory used by the browser. This is improving on modern devices, and I'm also considering making larger tablets behave almost exactly the same as desktop browsers. The 13" iPad Pro can certainly do that, for example.

In my experience here, public WiFi is often hardly faster than GPRS or dialup. I almost always use my own LTE instead. Detecting the network connection type with JavaScript is something that may come in the future. It requires a new API that is still classified as experimental and is not currently officially supported in any browser:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/doc ... connection

There are some hacks for detecting network connection speed, but they all involve accessing a known website and downloading a known blob of data and measuring the speed. And that's definitely something I don't want to integrate here... 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Tim Green wrote:It's not so much a question of connection speed as the amount of memory used by the browser.
Hi Tim,

I don't really follow that. :? The Index is only plain text, it doesn't contain any images. Even a long index list will require less memory than having a few images in the topic pane. Some annotated screenshots for example.

Would it be feasible to have an alternative index list available in one of the topics? Then a user need only access it when required, and if it failed to load switch to a different topic.

I also found the https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/doc ... mation_API page. It does claim to be usable on Android mobiles.

My usual solution to any problem is to ask the user. First click on the Index icon, and up pops "Are you currently using a WiFi connection? | Yes | No | Don't know ".

regards,

Martin.
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Tim Green
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Tim Green »

The starting-point for all this were very large tables of contents with thousands of entries. The rendered HTML was huge, and this was even slowing down desktop browsers. Eliminating the pre-rendered HTML doesn't solve this problem entirely, but it allows tables of contents that are larger by several orders of magnitude. In addition to this, locating items in the JSON object is much faster than searching for it in the rendered HTML.

Ultimately, however all this is moot background information. A full TOC and index mode is needed and I am going to provide that. It's definitely on the to do list. 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Martin Wynne
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Re: Fully expanded keyword index?

Unread post by Martin Wynne »

Thanks Tim.

Martin.
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