Gap between heading of topic and toolbar of CHM help window

[chfrmeyer]

Somewhere in the progress of Help&Manual versions, with some topics of my CHM help files the "separate heading" of the topic started to appear separated by a gap from the toolbar at the top of the CHM help window.

The two screenshot clips attached should illustrate what I mean. The more recently published helpfile shows this behavior of appearance while the older one (published under H&P 7.x, maybe a rather old sub-version of 7) appears more to my liking. The Project of origin is "old", meaning in my history that I did not use any skin. Instead I edited the Default page template (plus an additional, similar page template) to suit my needs. However I
have not managed to locate a point in my history or in H&M version history at which some difference in coding of the topic header could have caused that quirk. Also, reproducing it in a small project that is not part of my complex system of projects hasn't yielded a result that would Point to a solution.

Can anyone give me an idea what parameter or piece of XML Code would make the result lokk "more like it"?

[Tim Green]

Hi Christoph,

I haven't seen this before. It looks as though you are publishing without a skin, just using the template in the project itself, or a simple skin based on that. The easiest solution would be to select one of the dedicated CHM skins included with Help+Manual. That will give you a nicer topic header and it will also solve the problem with the gap. Otherwise you can also just reset the template in your project or skin; that will also solve the problem with a minimum of work.

[chfrmeyer]

The Problem with a simple page template or Skin is that that doesn't give me non-Scrolling Topic headers. I tried the example for a page template for non-scrolling headings provided with Help&Manual, and also a skin or two, but without convincing success.

My examination of the Problem so far suggests that the Transition fromVersion 7 to 8, in conjunction with some quirk related to Microsoft Ende or to the Microsoft HTML Help Compiler, would have led to the Problem. I wanted to load a Word or PDF dokument short report of my investigation, but those are reported to be invalid file types for uploading attachments. So I'll upload the screenshot files as attachments and insert the plain text of my Word document right here:

###########################################

In my complex system of large and interconnected H&M projects I have “recently” encountered the following quirky phenomenon: With many CHM help topics an unsightly gap shows up between the non-scrolling heading and the toolbar at the top of the window.

After some examining I it appears that Version 8 (specifically: Version 8.2.1 Build 5670) would be the (presumably unwitting) culprit. I found that out by opening the same (vintage) project with Version 7.5.3 and publishing to HTML Help, and then opening it with version 8.2.1 and publishing. The following 2 images show this:

<clip1_without_gap.png, clip2_with_gap.png>

In both cases I examined temporary htm files generated by the publishing process. A recurring difference is that one line appears differently for both publishing cases, all other lines being the same.

The line in question:

H&M V7.5.3 meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7
H&M V8.2.1 meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge

The equivalent line in the page template (together with the preceding comment line):
<!-- This line forces IE8 into IE7 mode, safer until IE8 is better known -->
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

More recent projects that “emulate” more recent versions of the Internet Explorer don’t’ make a difference in this matter.

To put it this way: Version 8 of Help&Manual follows Microsoft in nudging us away from Internet Explorer. It would be the same Microsoft HTML Help Compiler to use the temporary HTM files in both cases, so I conclude that the Help Compiler, with a rather unpredictable “sometimes”, doesn’t like something about “Edge browser” mode.

I tried the example for a page template for non-scrolling headings provided with Help&Manual, and also a skin or two, but without convincing success. However, I did take some peeks at the page template in question and a skin, and then made some trial-and-error attempts to work around the problem in my page template (one of 2 that I use).

The following images show this:

The first addition to the page template, and the resulting appearance of the help topic:

<clip5_first_addition.png, Clip4_after_first_addition.png>


The second addition to the page template, and the resulting appearance of the help topic:

<clip7_second_addition.png, Clip8_after_second_addition.png>


Is there a better way than this workaround to fix the “gap” quirk?

[chfrmeyer]

There seems to be an issue with uploading too many attachments...

[Tim Green]

Hi Christoph,

Posting the code here as screenshots won't help, unfortunately, because there's no way to test it directly. If you want me fix it for you, then send me a download link to your skin at support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and I'll have a look at it. Don't try to send a skin as an email attachment because it will be blocked by the mail server because it contains scripts. My guess it that your issue is simply a CSS setting somewhere.

But really, if you want a clean non-scrolling header, with a better look, just use one of the dedicated CHM skins included with Help+Manual 8. That is literally a one-click solution to this problem.

[chfrmeyer]

Hi Tim,

first of all, thanks for your responses.

Well, originally the projects affected by my issue did not use any skin but instead I manually edited the default page template and added another one mainly for topics that I intended to have a colored (yellowish) background.

My first attempt to use a skin hadn't satisfied me - that skin didn't make non-scrolling headers. Now I tried "CHM Skin, Light Grey Header, Feature Images" - that looks much better. It does yield non-scrolling headers and preserves a lot of resemblance to the look-and-feel that I had so far and adds some improvement. However, I would like to recover my second page template and also keep my specifications on the look of links (always blue, not purple, for example). Could I make a copy of the skin selected so far and tailpor it accordingly?

Regards
Christoph

[Tim Green]

Hi Cristoph,

However, I would like to recover my second page template and also keep my specifications on the look of links (always blue, not purple, for example). Could I make a copy of the skin selected so far and tailpor it accordingly?

Theoretically you could add a second page template to the standard skin. However, I wouldn't recommend that unless you create it as a copy of the first one. If you insert your code from your old skin/template into the second template there, it will need different CSS and scripts, and that will get messy and also probably not synchronize well with the standard skin.

IMPORTANT: If you create a second HTML page template in a skin you must also create a second, dummy HTML page template in all projects you want to use it in with EXACTLY the same name. Only the name is important in the project version, the code in it can be anything. But you need the page template with the same name in your project so that you can assign it to topics.

If all you want is your original layout you can send it to me at support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and I'll check it for you. If is stored in your project you just need to select Save As in the File Menu and save it as a skin. Then send it to me at support AT ec-software.com (replace the AT with @) and I'll have a look at it and see what is causing your gap.

[chfrmeyer]

In the meantime I have created an adaptation of the standard skin CHM Skin, Light Grey Header, Feature Images.hmskin that solves the isses reported in this conversation. Previously I had just not been using skins.

This gives me some neat points of improvement but also raises a question which I may soon introduce with a new conversation.