What should I give my end user, Air help or Publish?

Question

We are using RH8 and Windows 7I know the differences between WebHelp, Air Help and Publish. When you actually put your files out for the end user, what should you give them? Some of us seem to think you produce Air help then publish and put the published files out for the end users. I am beginning to think you don’t need to publish if you product Air help. Just put the air files out for the end user. The same would be true for Webhelp, just put the Webhelp files out for the end user. So, what’s the purpose of publish? What should I give my end user?

Peter Grainge · Accepted Answer

Ok, I think I can give you some more information here.

I generate browser based air and all the files go to a folder on my C drive called 91AirHelp. To access the help I click on the SSWelcome.htm file, which is the opening file in the 91AirHelp folder. Everything opens just fine and works great.

I put the folder on another drive and clicked the same SSWelcome.htm file and nothing happened. I sent the folder to a coworker. He put it on his C drive and tried to access the SSWelcome.htm file and nothing happened.

When I say nothing happened I mean we got a gray screen.

My coworker is a web guy and took a look at my files (he doesn't know RH though) and suggested that maybe I need to install an air application on the drives that receive the help. Could that be the problem.

Thank you.

Pat

Please put your browser based AIR help output on a server that would run webhelp and it should all be OK.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Peter Grainge · Answer

I think you are not understanding the difference.

WebHelp is designed to be published to a server and users access the help from there using their browser.

AIR help has two formats. What I refer to as Desktop AIR help and Browser AIR help.

Desktop AIR help is delivered in the form of a .AIR file and that is not what the user sees, the .AIR file is not like a CHM. The .AIR file is more like an exe in that it installs an application on the users PC and that must have the AIR runtime installed.

Browser AIR help by contrast is installed on a server just like WebHelp.

There is more about this on my site.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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