Copy/Paste breaks the search functionality in helpcase

Scriptcase 9 General
#1

I’ve discovered that if I copy/paste anything into helpcase it breaks the search functionality. I have older help files created with some One Note and wanted to reuse that. Not possible. I’ve tried removing all formatting from that documentation and then paste it - that doesn’t work either. I’ve tried saving into notepad++ before pasting into helpcase. I’ve tried html code - using the “Source Code” option. The only thing I’ve found that doesn’t break it is plain text from notepad - but even there - I have to retype everything. I am looking for a way to not have to do that. I would also like to be able to export the source from helpcase and save it externally somewhere. I wanted to include some code from scriptcase - just to show it - in a helpcase document and have found that copy/paste doesn’t work with that either.

How can I do what I need to do without complete recreation? The idea is to not have to do it twice.

#2

Hi Bhardin. Maybe the text encoding is working against you?

It’s just a theory: maybe you paste some UTF text and the search function, for some unknown reason, searches ANSI text?

You could test this theory using Notepad++ “Convert to ANSI” before copying and pasting into Helpcase.

Let us know if you try the suggestion!

Regards,

#3

That is it. The solution (should have read tinymce documentation) is to choose EDIT > PASTE AS TEXT in tinymce. From that point forward things seem to work.

#4

Well … good theory … and I thought that was it - but it’s not. Created a brand new helpcase manual. Created one document in that manual with one line of text that I typed into it. No copy/paste. No images. Straight from the box helpcase with one document containing one line of text. Search is broken.

#5

It would be a wonderful thing if helpcase worked - but it don’t. SC’s help documentation looks like it might have been created with helpcase - but I have to believe they aren’t eating their own dog food. Looking at alternatives.

#6

So I looked at a few alternatives and came back to helpcase. I like that it integrates with applications and that it has the (broken) search functionality - and that things are organized in a tree menu. Have been playing with it several hours trying to resolve this broken search issue … and think that I’ve found the problem … and no - it’s not scriptcase. I think it is corruption caused by latency over my satelite connection.

Scriptcase is installed on a server at our office; I am working from home on a satelite connection. If I save the document and wait for the saved message to go away - and THEN count to 10 before generation, it works every time - consistent. The other thing that I am doing is always always do a carriage return at the end of the document (I’ve seen missing carriage returns cause similar issues with other software in the past)

#7

The other thing that I might add… you can locate the corrupt document by using the “HIDE” option, recompiling, and testing again. It is not necessary to remove the offending document; just hide it and it won’t compile. When you have ‘fixed’ the problem (search is working again) you know that the last document hidden is corrupt. Unhide and compile again to prove it is the one. To find the corruption in the document, I cut the whole thing and paste into notepad then paste it back one paragraph at a time - compile again (until it breaks) then fix (retype) that paragraph.

#8

Back again … the other thing that I’ve found is that an apostrophe will break the search functionality. So instead of the word don’t - use do not. Crazy. I use single quote marks all the time - and it gets me.