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Can I use RoboHelp to design a skin for FrameMaker publishing to HTML5?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 1, 2024
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As stated in the subject line ... FrameMaker comes with a built-in editor for styling its HTML5 output, but it is not a very efficient editor. Is it possible to build a skin from scratch using RoboHelp which can be applied in FrameMaker?

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Correct answer Peter Grainge

It is Azure.

As to creating templates as they are known in the current version of RoboHelp, if you mean from scratch, then I think the answer is negative. I think I have only seen one claim from someone really creating their own and unsurprisingly I learned that because they were on the forum with problems.

Editing a supplied template for use in RoboHelp is a different thing. You can open an output and then use your browsers developer tools to find out how it is defined in the CSS. Then you can override what is not available in the editor defining it in a file called user.css that you add in the editor under layout > user assets.

How well that would work from Fm I couldn't say. My instincts are screaming not to consider it.

I think @Jeff_Coatsworth has given you good advice saying go from Fm to Rh. Then you could go frameless with many more editing options. Context sensitive calls using URLs will be different. That's covered on my site.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

A good few years back we did have someone who designed some skins that were on his site, he also designed some of the skins that come with RoboHelp. I think you will get the point when I say he had to hand them over to Adobe to make them work. 🙂

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

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Peter Grainge

Correct answer

Community Expert

It is Azure.

As to creating templates as they are known in the current version of RoboHelp, if you mean from scratch, then I think the answer is negative. I think I have only seen one claim from someone really creating their own and unsurprisingly I learned that because they were on the forum with problems.

Editing a supplied template for use in RoboHelp is a different thing. You can open an output and then use your browsers developer tools to find out how it is defined in the CSS. Then you can override what is not available in the editor defining it in a file called user.css that you add in the editor under layout > user assets.

How well that would work from Fm I couldn't say. My instincts are screaming not to consider it.

I think @Jeff_Coatsworth has given you good advice saying go from Fm to Rh. Then you could go frameless with many more editing options. Context sensitive calls using URLs will be different. That's covered on my site.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Use menu (bottom right) to mark as Best Answer or to Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

F

FrameMaker-dk

Author

Community Expert

I do not sense a lot of encouragement here, ha ha! @Jeff_Coatsworth @Peter Grainge And that's ok. I was mostly only wondering whether it could be done, and I guess I got good answers here 🙂

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

It's relatively painless to just import FM content into a blank RH project each time once you've established how you want the FM content broken up into topics (pagination) and style mappings to be used.

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

The "innards" of the FM HTML5 Publishing engine are using a RH Classic version "under the hood (bonnet)" - there's not much exposure of the actual controls in there, so until FM aligns itself with the New UI versions of RH, you still get way more control over the output if you go the FM to RH route with your content.

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

I don't use FrameMaker so I don't know whether the editor is the same as in RoboHelp. My guess is that Adobe would not have designed two editors. This is what is in RoboHelp

The Frameless output in RoboHelp uses much more customisable templates. Are they an option in Fm?

Another expert will be along later in the day and he will know more about the Fm side of things.

________________________________________________________

My site www.grainge.org includes many free Authoring and RoboHelp resources that may be of help.

Use menu (bottom right) to mark as Best Answer or to Highlight particularly useful replies. Found the answer elsewhere? Share it here.

F

FrameMaker-dk

Author

Community Expert

Thank you @Peter Grainge @Jeff_Coatsworth for your quick answers.

The screenshot you are showing, @Peter Grainge - is that a RoboHelp Azure skin file being opened and edited in RoboHelp? My "mission" with my original question is... I would like to create some skins of my own for FrameMaker. There are some basic skins which can be edited quite a lot, but I would still like to be able to bring in my own. So do you think I can edit a skin, save it under a new name and use it for FrameMaker publishing to HTML5?

Bjørn Smalbro - FrameMaker.dk

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Nothing stopping you from trying - but don't be very surprised if it all goes up in flames.

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