Information in the Powered by RoboHelp box not displaying

Report · Apr 21, 2009

Hi,

While generating FlashHelp, I edited the information displayed when the Powered by RoboHelp icon is clicked from the Help file to include a Help version. While testing, some users reported clicking the icon displayed the information correctly, while others are not. Without getting into too much detail, does anyone have any ideas about why this would happen? Or how to fix? I've attached a couple of screen shots that may help.

Any help you could offer would be much appreciated.

Thanks-

LJuneau

Report · Apr 22, 2009

Your attachments are still queued. Can you try inserting an image via the Camera icon instead.

Read the RoboColum(n) for mutterings on RoboHelp, Technical Communication Suite and technical communication.

Report · Apr 23, 2009

Sure, let me try the camera option.

In this example, I've typed information in the About box prior to generating FlashHelp. When FlashHelp is generated and displayed, some users cannot see the information I typed. Rather, when they click Powered by RoboHelp, they see this:

At first, I thought it may be a Flash issue. However, these same users can see the FlashHelp file display correctly. Has anyone seen this happen? Or does anyone have any ideas how to fix?

Appreciate your help,

LJuneau

Report · Apr 23, 2009

Hi there

You may wish to investigate differences in the Adobe Flash player versions.

For example, where the dialog appears correctly, right-click the dialog and see what is reported for the Flash Player version.

I'm thinking you may see a difference. (at least that's the hope )

Try this on more than a few PCs. My guess is that those that work fine will all be related to one player version while the ones that don't display properly are related to another.

Any way you slice it, you are facing an issue with the configuration of the end user's workstation. Unfortunately, we all too often have no control over that.

Cheers all... Rick

Report · Apr 23, 2009

I believe the FlashHelp skin movies are compatible with Flash Player version 6 forward. So if any of the users have version 5 or earlier, I could see that possibly causing a problem.

Report · Apr 23, 2009

In RH7 or earlier (you haven't said what RH version you're using), the text that you entered in the FlashHelp dialog is stored in wfres.xml near the top of the file. What shows in your second image looks like default text that may appear if the About box Flash movie can't find the text you specified. Can you have one of the users who can't see the text open up wfres.xml (in the output files) and check to make sure that the correct text is in the tags? The tags in this file would look like this:

I don't know if this setup has changed in RH8.

Report · Apr 23, 2009

Hi Ben

I'm confused with your reply here. If that file were empty, why would some users see it and others not?

My thought here is that if it were empty it would be empty in the source files.

Additionally, if the FlashHelp is coming from the server (which it should be) I would expect that everyone would see the same thing if they could locate and open this file.

Just thinking out loud a bit... Rick

Report · Apr 23, 2009

Yeah, I don't blame you for being confused. I was thinking that in testing, maybe everyone had the files on their hard drive. It's still morning here, so apparently my brain hasn't turned on yet.

I was just thinking that if files were being passed around, maybe that file was somehow being messed up. But I agree that if the files are on the server already, then it's probably something on the user side.

Sorry about the confusion!

Report · Apr 23, 2009

Hi All,

To answer some of your questions, I'm using RoboHelp 6 and the users are accessing the FlashHelp file from a server. I have a tendency to agree with Rick. My initial thought was the problem was Flash related...either to the version the user was running on their machine, or to their Flash settings. Unfortunately,like you mentioned...this is just one area we seldom have control over.

We're in the process of trying to get a software release out the door, so time permitting, I may do some additional testing on this. If I find anything significant, I'll let you know.

As always, I appreciate your time.

Thanks,

LJuneau