Robohelp and Adobe Captivate

[Zod86]

I currently use RoboHelp version 11.0.4 and we publish projects using Webhelp output. Our training department uses Adobe Captivate 5.0. 

Prior to the retirement of Flash player, I received Above Captivate projects from our training deparment as .exe files that used Adobe Flash Player. The training dept. would send me projects they created in captivate, I'd pull them in, Robo would create a baggage file, and I would publish the RoboHelp project. Then employees could access our guide and open this training material.

Since Flash Player has retired, obviously a lot of these training modules no longer work. So our training department published some of their modules as HTML documents.... but I cannot get the external link to work. If I link it as a webpage obviously it tries to become tied to the URL for Robo and I get a 404 error. I also tried moving the files to different drives and linking as a file, moving it onto our production server, and importing. I cannot get this to work. 
I don't have Adobe Captivate, so I can't do any testing on that end. I have been reading through online forums for a while now and can not find anyone else encountering this issue. 

Any assistance would greatly appreciated!

[Peter Grainge]

This is not my area and you are using a very old version of RoboHelp so browser issues are almost expected as RoboHelp was not designed for the current browsers. RoboHelp is now four versions on and Captivate is six versions on. That's likely why you can't find anyone encountering this issue.

Are both your output and Training's HTML files on a publicly accessible server? If so a hyperlink in your topic should be able to find their HTML files. Whether or not they work is another matter.

If not then if you import their HTML file and it looks right in RoboHelp, then a hyperlink again should work. However, their file may not work in RoboHelp depending on the coding. I doubt it will.

Hopefully someone else may have more first hand knowledge.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Zod86]

Thanks for the response, Peter. Yes, unfortunately we are badly in need of an upgrade. The servers are internal company servers that are accessible to employees. Robo finds the HTML document no problem, it creates an external link and gives me the warning that it may not function if the help system is moved. 

Whether I'm importing or just linking and I go to view it with IE, Edge or Chrome it works... but after I publish and check the link in the browser, it doesn't.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

I fooled around with this recently - the problem is that RH11 still expects some Flash launching within the Captivate HTML files. I ended up going back to the Captivate project files and generating .mp4 files that I could include in the RH project and just make a reference to.

[Zod86]

Thanks for the response, Jeff. I have no issues with linking to an mp4 and thought about that... but the problem is the interactive functionality in their training modules will be lost if it's converted to an mp4.

[Peter Grainge]

This sounds like the path is right locally but not on the server.

________________________________________________________
See www.grainge.org for free Authoring and RoboHelp Information

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

In that case, I think upgrading Captivate is your only solution.

[Amebr]

I found this article which suggests your training department may have upgraded captivate (html output only available since Captivate 6).

It also says that Webhelp is not supported. However, while it mentions only Multiscreen HTML5, Responsive might actually support it in RH11 (I think the article was written for RH1) - look for a setting in the Output/SSL settings, on the Optimisation page called Use Adobe Captivate HTML5 output.

If you're not using context sensitive help (CSH) you might be able to change to a responsive output, rather than upgrade immediately, which is going to be a really steep learning curve.  (If you do use context sensitive help your developers will need to change the context help calls.)

Note: Don't move to multiscreen output as that format is not longer supported, so it would be a waste of your time.

Have a read and see if the information helps in any way.

https://iconlogic.blogs.com/weblog/2013/08/adobe-robohelp-embed-captivate-html5-output.html

[Zod86]

Thanks for the reply, Amebr. Reading through this blog... this makes sense. I'll give it a try.

[Amebr]

Do check with your training department about whether they've upgraded. I haven't used Captivate in many years, so I'm just going off what I read in the article, and it's entirely possible I've mis-read. 🙂