Strange URL format when using responsive skin

[Helen Abbott]

Hi,

I'm publishing WebHelp with a non-customized responsive skin. When H&M automatically displays the WebHelp after publishing, my URLs look as expected, with the format topicname.html.

When I manually open index.html in the output folder, my home page URL is initially correct, but once I browse to another page, the URL format changes to: index.html#topicname.html. I'm attaching screenshots.

Is this expected? Will the URLs be correct when the WebHelp is uploaded to my webserver?

thanks,
Helen

[Tim Green]

Hi Helen,

Yes, this is normal. When working without a server in some browsers the skins can't use normal HTML5 URL rewriting because it needs a web server to support it. It needs to downgrade gracefully to the older and more basic hashbang format to achieve the same result. You can still use the normal URL syntax described in the documentation to open topics, those will work as well because the URL parser can handle both formats (and it will also accept the old index.html?topic.htm format to handle existing links to your help from other sites).

As soon as it is on a web server it will use the new URL syntax automatically.

Note that if you activate the include option for local WebHelp without a server when publishing the help will be fully functional in all browsers without a web server, also in Internet Explorer (where you previously had security warnings) and Chrome (where it didn't work at all). This can be useful for local deployments.

[Helen Abbott]

OK, from my reading of the Premium Pack help I had thought the URLs would only revert to the older format in older browsers and good old IE. I'm seeing this with the latest versions of Chrome and FF, but if you're sure all is well I will proceed with skin customization. Thanks for the info.

Helen