RoboHelp 8 - Context Sensitive Help with AIR - Browser Based Help Application

[Guest]

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to find out wich options do i have to implement a context sensitive help generated as a browser based help application (AIR).

I'm checking out every output that Robohelp can generate and i find all the options for context sensitive help applications as WebHelp o Microsoft HTML Help... but i really like the way that the help application is generated as a air application.

I know there is a post in this forum about how you can use the context sensitive help caracteristics on Adobe AIR Application using parameters when you call the .exe file.. but how can i call an especific topic on a browser based help application?

thanks for everything.. Sabin

[Peter Grainge]

One  method of doing it with webhelp is startpage.htm#path/target_topic.htm as described on my site under Calling WebHelp using URLs. One teensy weensy problem with browser based AIR help, the method is broken!

Please report it as well. http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

You will have to investigate using map ids meantime. This is covered in the online help.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

[EileenPalsson]

We have an web application that we previously generated WebHelp for. The browser-based AIR help is a more modern option, so we would like to switch to that. (Using an Adobe AIR application with this project is unfortunately out of the question at this time.)

The problem is the context sensitive help. When we call up the help, only the topic itself is shown, without any of the navigation or search options. If I understand correctly, Peter, the solution is for me to ask the developers to change the call to startpage.htm#path/target_topic.htm. Is that correct, or am I misunderstanding what you and the original poster are discussing here?

And if I did understand correctly, then I must also understand that this call is broken for browser-based AIR help. And there's no other solution at present. Correct?

If that's the case, our choices are:

• Go back to WebHelp, and wait for Adobe to fix it so we can have CS help with AIR browser-based help.
• Just live with showing users the CS help page but without any way of navigating in the help system. (Unacceptable.)
• Show only the entire help system, and let users search for the CS help page themselves. (Unacceptable.)

Or -- is there any way to insert a "Show" button like we had in WebHelp, that lets users turn on the navigation options?

Thank you!

[Peter Grainge]

I believe the bug was fixed in 8.0.1. I'm about to go into a meeting so I will have to leave you to test that. Post back if still not working.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[EileenPalsson]

Thank you Peter. I wanted to post a follow-up that we did get this to work.

We are using RH 8.0.2, and the developer said that he changed the links from this:

http://ServerName/Path/PathInHelpProject/Topic.htm

To this:

http://ServerName/Path/StartPage.htm#PathInHelpProject/Topic.htm

Now we can see all of the help functionality, and the context sensitivity works great. Thank you for the info!

Eileen