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Rocky_XYZZY
Inspiring
February 17, 2011
Question

How do I simultaneously deliver a local and a web-based help system?

  • February 17, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 4577 views

I have to beleive that someone out there knows if this is possible...

Some of our users install on systems without external internet access, so even though we really want them to use the web-based help so that we have analytics on the help usage, we need to install a local version of the help, too, rather than force them to have an internet connection to get help.

It's obvious that the TCS lets us create the help system we need, host it on RoboServer, and run reports and such. I've got that working using the demo version of the suite.

What's unclear to me is if it's possible to create something close to the Adobe Community Help experience so we can create help content that installs locally on a user's system, allow them to always run locally and update content from online when they want, or more importantly, view the online version instead of the local version.

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1 reply

R
Rocky_XYZZYAuthor
Inspiring
February 18, 2011

Really?

I can't be the only person on the planet Earth who is interested in having offline and online content simultaneously for users who don't have internet connections all the time.

Nothing?

johndaigle
johndaigle
Legend
February 18, 2011

Hey Rocky_XYZZY.

Glad to see you're digging into the many flavors of output provided by RoboHelp and TCS.

The Adobe Community Help (ACH) client application is a hybrid proprietary system developed by Adobe for all their products and not available as such. However, from the scenario you describe, I think you could emulate something very close to what you see in ACH by using AIR Help output. As you have discovered, it has favorites, commenting, moderation, and can be installed locally and easily updated. You can even deploy it in such a way that the end user can select from different help systems or knowledge bases. Plus External Content Search allows you to pre-select certain keyword searches which would provide resources outside your help system similar to the way ACH works.

Unfortunately, at the present time the AIR Help format is not supported on the Adobe RoboHelp Server 9. Only WebHelp Pro or FlashHelp Pro.

So, while not ideal, one solution would be a dual deployment: Publish your web-based content via RoboHelp Server 9 and redeploy local help via AIR Help. The downside is that you would only get Feedback Analytics on the RoboHelp Server-based activity and not AIR Help traffic.

My experience with the Adobe team is that they are very responsive to new ideas and what you describe would be terrific. I'll be at WritersUA in Long Beach on March 13 and will mention this to Ankur Jain, the Adobe RoboHelp and TCS Product Manager. In fact, it would be great if you could join us there. It's a great conference. My RH colleagues on this forum (Peter Grainge, Rick Stone and Tom Aldous) will also be there.

http://www.writersua.com/conference/agenda.htm

Thanks

John Daigle
Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor
Evergreen, Colorado
www.showmethedemo.com

@hypertexas

John DaigleAdobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate InstructorNewport, Oregon
R
Rocky_XYZZYAuthor
Inspiring
February 21, 2011

Ha! You beat me to it. I was Skyping with my UK colleague Peter Grainge last night and we came across the same idea. I am almost finished with a test project to validate the best way to set this up. Until I finish that, here is the most critical process in making this possible.

It seems to work as advertised. I didn't mention it before, because I was hung up on your requirement to offer a choice to the end user when the help comes up. This basically works if the author sets it up as shown in the screenshot. Let me finish up a few things on my sample and I'll report back.

Stand by

John Daigle
Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor
Evergreen, Colorado
www.showmethedemo.com


Thank you for your continued assistance with this.

I've created an Air html help as a counterpart for the Air app help to test this out, but I'm having difficulty with the web server destination path and therefore cannot publish. (Still learning this trial version.)

Right now I have my destination set based upon what the apache server install shows but it's not working.

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