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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
Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
April 8, 2011

Thanks, Peter. That makes a lot of sense.

We've gone ahead and upgraded to TCS3, and I'm now working on getting AIR Help up and running. I notice there's a point brought up earlier in this thread that never seemed to be addressed, and I'm having the same problem, so I wanted to see if anyone knows anything about it.

In the post timestamped Feb 22, 2011 8:14 AM, Rocky mentions that the "go online" functionality is not working. I'm seeing the same thing-- I click the little red light and the screen refreshes but nothing else happens. I have my AIR Help set up to automatically update and to use online content, and I have the update and the online content hosted on a server... but neither functionality is working, as AIR Help seems to "think" that it's offline. Now, it ISN'T actually offline. When I go to Preferences and click Check for Updates, it's perfectly capable of telling me that I have an update ready. So clearly it has Internet access. I saw the post at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/452362?tstart=0, which would seem to indicate that this is simply a matter of waiting a bit. That doesn't seem to be the case here, though-- I left the thing idle overnight and it still hadn't checked for updates when I returned.

So basically I have two main questions:

1) Does anyone have insight into how to get the installed AIR Help to recognize that it's online and perform accordingly?

2) I'm not 100% clear on exactly how the Show Online Content option (set on the View page of the SSL properties window) works, and because AIR Help thinks it's offline, I can't test it. If I have that checked, will AIR Help use the browser-based help when I'm online? If so, will it display in my browser instead of in the AIR Help viewer? I'm trying to replicate the rather seamless behavior that Adobe's own help demonstrates, where online/offline are displayed in the same window, and where one can actually specify to search online or locally...

Thanks,

Melinda


1) Does anyone have insight into how to get the installed AIR Help to recognize that it's online and perform accordingly?    

When the help file has been opened and it has popped up the dialog once, it never does so again. Intead if you look near the Preferences option at the bottom you should see something like New Version. If you uninstall the help and reinstall it, then it will pop up the dialog once more and once only. (You might need to reboot in between, can't remember the exact steps.)

2) I'm not 100% clear on exactly how the Show Online Content option (set on the View page of the SSL properties window) works, and because AIR Help thinks it's offline, I can't test it

I think you are concluding that the local help thinks it is offline because it is not popping up the dialog. That is explained above.

Hopefully Tulika's blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2011/03/online_offline_csh.html will give you some help on the airplane help problem.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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