.desc and Html files

[danx]

Hi all,

I have made .desc files for PDF files.
Now, I would like
A) to use this .desc files to act as a metadata for html files
B) merge these data from the .desc files into the header of the corresponding HTML files.

Is A) and B) possible and how to achieve this?

(I was looking for mass merge/join tools but had no succes to find any usefull one. Maybe someone here knows some).

TIA,

Danx

[Ray]

Presuming that (A) is meant in reference to Zoom (that is, you want to use the .desc files to serve meta data to Zoom), then yes, of course, that is the whole point of them. See this FAQ:
Q. How do I specify my own titles and descriptions for PDF and DOC files?

Or do you mean something besides description and keywords as meta data? Are you referring to Custom Meta Fields data for example? Please be more specific.

(B) could be possible with the right tool, but I don't personally know of one.

[danx]

Presuming that (A) is meant in reference to Zoom (that is, you want to use the .desc files to serve meta data to Zoom), then yes, of course, that is the whole point of them. See this FAQ:
Q. How do I specify my own titles and descriptions for PDF and DOC files?

Or do you mean something besides description and keywords as meta data? Are you referring to Custom Meta Fields data for example? Please be more specific.

So far I understood the .desc files have the purpose to let the data in it be displayed in the search results FOR NON HTML files. (I hope they (. desc metadata ) are also highlighted when configured properly as well as hits insde PDF files after a click on the particular result link).
Hereby I reffer to http://www.wrensoft.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2505&highlight=.desc+html+v6, so maybe it is introduced in V6 (I cannot find it in a feature list).

But I am asking actually and also the following:

a) Is it possible to use the same .desc files for the corresponding/same named HTML files instead of PDF files?

b) if it is, then it it is not so effective like having the same meta name="description" inside the header of the HTML file, because the latter gets into the index (and is thus searchable). Having metadata in .desc files and not in index will not allow to search the description metadata when searching for HTML files (who have no metadata), because the .desc data is just for displaying?

c) does the meta name="description" in .desc files have a limit regarding the character amount when used with PDF or HTML?


Please correct me if I think wrong somewhere in the above text, and THX for a descriptive reply,

Danx

[Ray]

So far I understood the .desc files have the purpose to let the data in it be displayed in the search results FOR NON HTML files. (I hope they (. desc metadata ) are also highlighted when configured properly as well as hits insde PDF files after a click on the particular result link).
Hereby I reffer to http://www.wrensoft.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2505&highlight=.desc+html+v6, so maybe it is introduced in V6 (I cannot find it in a feature list).

Yes, ZOOMTITLE and ZOOMDESCRIPTION meta tags were added to V6.

a) Is it possible to use the same .desc files for the corresponding/same named HTML files instead of PDF files?

There's no reason to do this when the above is possible (you can either add the meta tags directly into the HTML file, or use meta ZOOMTITLE, ZOOMDESCRIPTION or ZOOMWORDS tag to add alternate meta data without affecting your "proper" meta data for Google and the outside world).

b) if it is, then it it is not so effective like having the same meta name="description" inside the header of the HTML file, because the latter gets into the index (and is thus searchable). Having metadata in .desc files and not in index will not allow to search the description metadata when searching for HTML files (who have no metadata), because the .desc data is just for displaying?

No, the .desc data is also indexed.

c) does the meta name="description" in .desc files have a limit regarding the character amount when used with PDF or HTML?

It is the same as the "Max. description limit" specified on the "Limits" panel of the Configuration tab (which has an upper limit of 2000 characters).

[fchapman]

I would also find using .desc files for HTML files useful. In RoboHep 7 any Zoom meta tags or keywords that you add to your source HTML files are automatically stripped out when the webhelp output is generated.

Other users have suggested that you add the meta tags and simply index against the source files and not the output. However, this doesn't work if you use conditional tags to include/exclude contents/topics from the output.

[David]

If all your meta data is being stripped, then why not just include the keywords in the content of the document. And use CSS to hide it from view.

CSS
p.hide { display: none; }

HTML
<p class="hide">This paragraph is hidden because it has a display value of "none". But Zoom will still index this text even if the user can't see it in a browser</p>

[fchapman]

Thanks for another speedy reply.

I hadn't thought of that and will give it a try for keywords. However, I'm assuming that this doesn't allow you to specify a zoom description - which is what I'd really like to be able to do.

[David]

The meta description tag needs to appear in the document header, between the <head> tags. Does Robohelp really delete everything between the <head> tags?

[fchapman]

Not everything, but in RoboHelp 7 all meta tags and keywords that I've tried inserting have been stripped out. RoboHelp 8 appears to behave better, but upgrading to this version isn't an option for my company as we're hoping to switch to Madcap Flare sometime this year. Incidentally, although I can get zoom indexing working with Flare, this application also strips out the meta tags when generating output.

Sorry, I seem to have hijacked someone else's thread.