External content search

External content search enables authors to display content from specified URLs based on terms that users are likely to search. You can create a list of URLs related to a project and, for each URL, provide a set of search terms, a title, and, a description. When a user's search query contains any of these search terms, RoboHelp returns the title and description of the corresponding URL in the search results. When the user clicks it, the contents are displayed in the Topic Pane.The URL returned in search results has the same rank as the keyword specified in topics.

    Set up and manage external content search

    1. In the Project Set-up pod, right-click External Content Search.

    2. Use the following options to set up and manage external content search:

      Edit
      Click Add and specify a URL, a title, search terms (separated by a comma, space, or semicolon), and a description in the editable row. Click Add to add another row. Click Save to save the entries in the SearchOptions.xml file in the project folder.

      Import
      Click Import and select the SearchOptions.xml file from a project to import the external content search settings of that project into the current project.

      Export
      Click Export and select a folder to export the SearchOptions.xml file. Exporting the SearchOptions.xml file from one project to another is useful when two projects need to allow searching similar external content.

      Explore
      Click Explore to locate the SearchOptions.xml file in Windows Explorer. You can open the file in a text editor and make changes.

    Enable external content search

    You can enable external content search in the following layoutsSSLs:

    • WebHelp

    • FlashHelp

    • Adobe AIR

    • WebHelp Pro

    • FlashHelp Pro

    1. In the Single Source Layouts pod, right-click the layout in which you want to generate output and select Properties.

    2. Depending on the layout, do the following:

      • (Adobe AIR) Click View and select Enable External Content Search.

      • (WebHelp) Click Search and select Enable External Content Search.

      • (WebHelp Pro) Select Enable External Content Search.

      • (FlashHelp and FlashHelp Pro) Click Next and select Enable External Content Search.