WebHelp navigation not working

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Phil Haselden
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:46 am

WebHelp navigation not working

Unread post by Phil Haselden »

Hi,

We are publishing to WebHelp using a slightly edited version of Modern_Standarad_WebHelp.hmskin. Recently the generated WebHelp stopped working. The main issue is clicking on any entry in the TOC on the left does not navigate the topic.

Opening the F12 dev tools, I see the following in the console:

Code: Select all

hmcontent.html:730 Uncaught RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded
    at findNode (hmcontent.html:730:19)
    at findNode (hmcontent.html:793:18)
    at findNode (hmcontent.html:793:18)
    at findNode (hmcontent.html:793:18)
    at findNode (hmcontent.html:793:18)
    at findNode (hmcontent.html:793:18)
    at locateNodeChain (hmcontent.html:818:17)
    at tocConstructor.findElement (hmcontent.html:890:3)
    at tocConstructor.findElement (hmcontent.html:902:9)
    at tocConstructor.findElement (hmcontent.html:902:9)
Any ideas? TIA.
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Tim Green
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Posts: 23156
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
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Re: WebHelp navigation not working

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Phil,

This indicates that something is damaged in the TOC generation scripts and/or the compressed TOC code generated by Help+Manual, from which the TOC is generated. In these skins the TOC is not a static HTML file. The TOC data is generated by Help+Manual as a compressed JSON file, which the scripts then load in the background and then generate the HTML for the visible branches of the TOC only. This saves a lot of time and overheads, which is particularly important on mobile devices.

You need to return to an unedited copy of the skin and apply your changes in single steps. Then test carefully after each step until you find the error that is causing the issue.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Phil Haselden
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:46 am

Re: WebHelp navigation not working

Unread post by Phil Haselden »

Thanks

Since our skin hadn't been updated in a few months, but the problem appeared recently, I doubted it was related to a skin change, so went investigating.

FYI I found that the TOC file had an unusual defaulttopic set as shown below and the topic specified is not in the TOC. Removing the attribute set the default topic back to the introduction and all seems OK now.

Line 2 of table_of_contents.xml:

Code: Select all

<map xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" defaulttopic="FixorUnfixaGridViewColumn">
Thanks
Phil
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Tim Green
Site Admin
Posts: 23156
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2002 9:11 am
Location: Bruehl, Germany
Contact:

Re: WebHelp navigation not working

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Phil,

Thanks for reporting this. We'll look into possible protection against errors caused by a non-existent default topic. :)
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.
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