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Tejas Dandekar
Tejas Dandekar
Inspiring
March 20, 2018
Question

RH 2017 - Announcing alerts, news, updates

  • March 20, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 481 views

We are evaluating RH 2017 Responsive HTML 5 layout over traditional Web Help.

One question the PM team has is that is there a way to show or configure alerts, news, updates that user would see when the user launches the help from the product?

The help will be hosted on a help server.

For example, some critical fixes have been made in the product that need to be highlighted/shown upfront on the launch of the help for about a month or until the next help build is pushed. Is that doable?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

A
Community Expert
AmebrCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 20, 2018

At a previous job we had a popup with the What's New set up. It only popped up once, when a new major software version was detected. It was a long time ago so I can't remember how we implemented it, but it was probably something like:

When the help is run, check for a specific cookie. If it doesn't exist, create it, saving the current software version number as the value. If the cookie exists, check if the cookie value matches the major software version the client is running. If it does, don't do anything. If it doesn't, open the What's New topic in a new window - we somehow coded it so that there was no skin/layout, no "show help" link (usual for CSH calls) and no browser chrome (tabs, web address field, menus, etc).

I feel like there was also a text file included as baggage that contained the major version number ( I remember updating a file only for major versions, not service packs.) but I can't remember where it would have fit in.

Anyway, maybe this will give your developers some ideas about how to implement this feature.

Captiv8r
Captiv8r
Legend
March 21, 2018

Is the cookie of the chocolate chip variety? Or of the snickerdoodle variety?

    A
    Community Expert
    AmebrCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 22, 2018

    We don't have cookies here, so I'd say it's a Monte Carlo biscuit.

    220px-Single_Monte_Carlo_Biscuit_%28intact%29.jpg

    Monte Carlo (biscuit) - Wikipedia

      Peter Grainge
      Community Expert
      Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 20, 2018

      Responsive layouts have nothing different from WebHelp in that respect. It is something that you would have to design into your content and TOC. Maybe the default topic would have a What's New section or a link to it and the TOC would have the first book set up for that purpose as well.

      There is nothing that would automatically expire.

      See www.grainge.org for free RoboHelp and Authoring information.

      @petergrainge

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