Show / Hide Expanding and Dropdown Text

What's covered?

RoboHelp features DHTML effects that enable you to include expanding and dropdown text. Clicking any one link enables the reader to see the specific expanding or dropdown text. This topic covers methods to:

Show all the expanding and dropdown text.
Hide all the expanding and dropdown text.
Print with or without all the expanding and dropdown text included.

Please note

Contrary to what was previously stated here, these methods will work with Firefox (1.5.3, perhaps earlier) as well as IE. I have not checked whether they work with other Gecko based browsers so you will need to do that if necessary. The methods also work with compiled CHM help. See Dropdowns for details of other Show / Hide methods.
Please note that the methods cannot be used satisfactorily in the same topic as Twisties. However, Jesse Brossard has provided alternative scripts which do enable you to have both.

Buttons on the Page

You can have one button that changes its label from Show to Hide plus some print options.
You can have two buttons, one for Show and one for Hide. This method has extra print options.

Both of these methods work in RH X3 to X5 and may work in earlier versions, not tested.

Both work in webhelp and compiled .chm help.

Demo

Click here to open a RoboHelp demo.

Buttons on the Toolbar

As an alternative, you can have a single button on the toolbar but this does not have the graphical button that changes from Show All to Hide All.

Note that this method will not work in RH X3 or lower. Also it only works in webhelp.

How Is It Done?

One Button Method

Two Button Method

Toolbar Method

Acknowledgements

The development of this method has involved many people.

The script was originally produced by Tommy Simmons.
It was then modified by Rick Stone and Pete Lees.
Finally it was modified again by Tommy Simmons and Jon Hawkins with additional input from Mike Lavender. Previously the script could not be used in topics that had <DIV> tags other than dropdown and expanding text, now it can.
The changes to the script when the method using a single button was added were written by Pete Lees, in part using script from Greg Swearingen's site.
I then produced the demos and explained how to implement the method.
Later an extensive rewrite was required to deal with a bug that had crept in along the way, probably a change in the way RH works internally. Many thanks are due to Greg Swearingen for devising a new method for X3.
Unfortunately changes in X4 and X5 meant the new method was not compatible. Paul Symonds reworked the script so that it would work in X4 and X5.
Paul Symonds also amended the script to so that topics at any folder level can work from one file.
The toolbar method was devised by Allen Dean using some of the above script but with many changes.

Many thanks to Tommy, Rick, Pete, Jon, Mike, Greg, Paul and Allen.

Topic Revisions

Date	Changes to this page
08 May 2006	Firefox and Gecko compatibility statement revised.
14 Apr 2006	What's Covered amended to cover alternative scripts being available for both webhelp and CHM help.
19 Feb 2006	Cross reference to Dropdowns topic added.
26 May 2005	Availability of script running both Show / Hide and Twisties in a CHM file added.
13 Apr 2005	Incompatibility with Twisties noted.
16 Mar 2005	Note re IE only compatibility added.
29 May 2004	Toolbar method added.
02 Jun 2004	Note added re which methods work in webhelp and which work in .chm help.