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Enable Local Testing for MS Internet Explorer

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This option turns off the security restrictions activated in Microsoft Internet Explorer when you open HTML pages containing scripting on your local machine. It is provided so that you can test your output on your production machine without having to click away the yellow warning bar every time you open the help in Internet Explorer to test it.

File links will not work when you use this method to open Webhelp on local machines in Internet Explorer. This is because activating this feature treats the help files as though they were a website in Internet Explorer's Trusted Sites zone, and websites are not permitted to access files on your computer.

Do not use this option for the final version of your help published on the Internet or an intranet. It can cause problems in some browsers when your files are accessed on a web server.
The yellow security warning bar in Internet Explorer

If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your standard browser you will see the yellow warning bar shown on the right when you test Webhelp output on your local machine.

In addition to this, all dynamic features of your Webhelp will be turned off. Other browsers are not affected by this.
The MSIE Security
Information Bar
About the security warning bar

Windows XP Service Pack 2 introduced a new feature in Microsoft Internet Explorer that initially blocks active content in HTML files when they are opened from your local hard disk. The yellow warning bar shown above is displayed and to be able to display such content you must click on this bar and explicitly confirm that you want to open "active content" on your local machine.

The warning is not displayed if you open the same HTML content on a network drive or the Internet.

Microsoft calls this feature "Local Machine Lockdown". What it does is to disable all JavaScript and other scripting commands in local HTML files. It is triggered by the presence of <script> tags in the code (a single empty <script> tag is sufficient).
Why the bar is displayed for Webhelp

The Webhelp output of Help & Manual uses Javascript to create a rich user experience. For example, JavaScript is necessary for the dynamic TOC with expanding and collapsing menus and for toggles containing  expanding text and images. Local Machine Lockdown on MS Internet Explorer prevents you from being able to test these functions on your local computer machine with Internet Explorer.  This option enables full testing of Webhelp on your local machine with Internet Explorer.

 

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