Getting started with Context-Sensitive Help

[Writer]

I've never used RH to process DITA files, so I can't imagine what the process is. Do you have to regenerate your FM files each time you update your content? That sounds very slow and tedious.

>You could go through a similar process using WebWorks ePublisher, as well as other Help publishing tools. Typically, you'd embed the marker into the topics, and publish through the standard process for that tool.

Scott mentioned WebWorks ePublisher, which processes your DITA files directly. This is the HAT that I use to create output from DITA.

If your developers have given you a header file with topic aliases, you specify each topic alias using the othermeta element to define the marker (in ePublisher) with the value of the topic ID for that topic. (http://www.webworks.com/Documentation/Reverb/index.html#page/03.Preparing%2520and%2520Publishing%2520Content/Preparing%2520DITA%2520Files.3.15.htm).

Robert mentioned two ways to handle CSH:

>There are two basic approaches: (1) the developers maintain the map file and give it to you to import into RoboHelp, or (2) you generate the map file with RoboHelp and give it to them. I've always done (1).

There is another way, which is the developer embeds the HTML file name in the code. In WebWorks ePublisher, if you want to keep the file name constant (in case the actual file name of the DITA file changes or becomes obsolete), you specify file names in the othermeta element to define the marker (in ePublisher) with the name for the file. For example:

<prolog><metadata><othermeta @name=filename @content=r_widget_dialog_box_description>

I'm not sure if any of that translates well to what you must do for RoboHelp.

Nadine