Make left pane fixed

[tomjohnson1492]

I'm having an issue with the left pane. I've noticed that sometimes the left pane (where the TOC resides) launches in a collapsed state. I don't really see much value in users being able to slide that left pane around. Is there any way I can disable the sliding mechanism, or make it fixed at a certain width, or just generally avoid it launching in the collapsed state?

[sorin_ristache]

Hi,

Do you mean the left pane of the WebHelp pages, containing the Table of Contents tree and the Search tab, generated by the Oxygen WebHelp transformation? It was not clear from your post if the problem was in a browser page or in a view of the Oxygen application (the Outline view).

If it is the Content/Search pane of the WebHelp pages please give us more details because this pane should never allow you to hide it to the margin of the page or move it around. It should always be fixed and attached to the left margin of the browser window. What Oxygen version do you use? In what browser version do you view the WebHelp pages and on what platform (for example: Windows 7 SP1, Linux Ubuntu 14.0, Mac OS 10.9.5, etc)?

Did you create the WebHelp pages from a DITA map? Does your map (or the topics included in the map) has a language specified with the xml:lang attribute that has right-to-left writing, for example an Arabic language?

[tomjohnson1492]

Yes, the left pane with the TOC and search. Sometimes it is collapsed by default and I have to drag the vertical slider over to the right to make the TOC visible. The vertical splitter allows users to change the width of the left pane. I would like to disable the vertical splitter and always make that left pane open.

The browser is chrome. No special languages.

[sorin_ristache]

Yes, the vertical splitter allows hiding the Content pane but by default (when a WebHelp page is first loaded after creating the WebHelp pages in the Oxygen transformation) the Content pane is always visible.

Is the Content panel hidden (docked to the window margin) by default for you, which means the first time you open a WebHelp page after generating it in the Oxygen application? On what platform (Windows, Linux, etc)?

Anyway I understand that you want to disable the button on the vertical splitter that allows you to hide the Content pane. An option or parameter is not available yet for that in the Oxygen WebHelp transformation. However a quick solution is to comment out the body of the JavaScript function called splitTo (between lines 189 and 303) in the file:

OXYGEN_INSTALL_DIR\frameworks\dita\DITA-OT\plugins\com.oxygenxml.webhelp\oxygen-webhelp\resources\js\splitter.js

[tomjohnson1492]

Thanks, but while commenting out these lines does disable the splitter, it also makes the main content window blank. Any other ideas?

[sorin_ristache]

Sorry, no, I don't get that effect in the browser. The links in the left-side Content pane continue to work correctly and I can see the topic content in the right-side pane when I click on the topic title in the Content pane.

What browser version number do you use (ex: Chrome 37.0, IE 10, etc) and on what platform (ex: Windows 7 SP1, Ubuntu Linux 14.04, etc)?

Please can you send me a zip archive with your WebHelp output directory created by the Oxygen WebHelp transformation, for testing it?

[tomjohnson1492]

This issue is erratic and hard to reproduce, but I'll try my best to capture it on video. I use normal browsers -- latest version of Chrome, FF, and Safari. The collapsed state only happens when I open a link from within a Salesforce Community and the link opens in a new window. I also have some styles that alter the TOC pane a bit:

Code: Select all

#tree ul li a{

    overflow:hidden;

}



#contentBlock{

    white-space:normal;

    width:260px;

}



div#tree .topic{

    max-width:300px;

}



.conbody,

.taskbody,

.refbody,

.body{

    max-width:800px;

}

But I only started noticing the issue when launching the webhelp from Salesforce (site.com).

By the way, I'm not sure why the entries in the TOC don't wrap by default. Also, I'm not a fan of the liquid layout for the main content window. That's why I made these alterations.

[sorin_ristache]

This issue is erratic and hard to reproduce, but I'll try my best to capture it on video.

If you can capture the problem in a video please send us the video.

By the way, I'm not sure why the entries in the TOC don't wrap by default. Also, I'm not a fan of the liquid layout for the main content window. That's why I made these alterations.

Do you mean the default WebHelp CSS skin that is set in the DITA Map WebHelp transformation that comes in the Oxygen kit? You can set no skins in the WebHelp transformation by making sure there is no predefined CSS skin selected and no custom CSS skin set on the Skins tab of the WebHelp transformation dialog box. You select and unselect a predefined CSS skin by clicking on it repeatedly. A skin is selected when it is surrounded by a blue border.