I Came, I Saw, I Learned...

Adobe RoboHelp: Supporting Android Phones

by Willam Van Weelden

RoboHelp 10 allows you to support a wide range of devices. RoboHelp detects a user's device and automatically presents the content in the optimal format for that specific device. While this is a great new RoboHelp feature, sometimes things can go wrong.

For example, last week a client reported that his RoboHelp content was displaying correctly across all devices except his Samsung Galaxy SIII. Instead of using the Android layout as instructed, the device consistently used the Desktop layout.

The phone's default display resolution is very high. It is so high, in fact, RoboHelp failed to recognize the device as a phone. The solution to this problem is simple: increase the maximum screen resolution via the Android_Phone Screen Profile. Here's how:

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod (View > Pods).
2. Open Screen Profiles.
   
3. Double-click Android_Phone to open its Screen Profile.
   
4. Set the Maximum width to 1000 pixels.
5. Set the Maximum height to 1280 pixels.
   
6. Click the Save button and then close the dialog box.
7. Save the project and then Generate the Multiscreen HTML5 layout.
   
   The next time the layout is accessed by an Android phone, it will use the correct layout.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe RoboHelp 10: Add a Logo to an HTML5 Catalog Layout

by Willam Van Weelden

A few weeks ago I showed you how to adjust the search highlight color in Multiscreen HTML5. This week, let's look at how you add your logo to the Multiscreen HTML5 Catalog Layout.

Not all Screen Layouts support logos by default. Fortunately, it is easy to add your logo to the Catalog Layout. To begin, ensure that your logo image meets these requirements:

• No more than 80 pixels tall
• No more than 400 pixels wide

Ensure that the Catalog Layout is Available in the Project:

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod.
2. Open Screen Layouts. If the Desktop_Catalog layout is in the list, you are ready to add your logo. If not, continue with the next few steps.
   
3. Right-click Screen Layouts and choose New Screen Layout.
4. From the Gallery list at the left, select Desktop_Catalog.
   
   
5. Click the OK button.

Add Your Logo to the Catalog Layout

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod.
2. Open Screen Layouts > Desktop_Catalog > Topic (Default).
   
3. On the Topic page, click in the text box located at the top of the page.
   
   
4. Choose Insert > Image and insert your logo as a regular image.
   
   

You may not see the entire logo while working within the Screen Layout Editor. No worries. When you generate the layout, the logo will display correctly.


5. Save the Topic page.
6. Right-click the logo and choose Copy.
7. Open the Search Results page.
8. Click in the text box located at the top of the Search Results page.
   
   
9. Right-click in the text box and choose Paste.
10. Save the project, Generate and then view the results.

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe RoboHelp: Edit a Multiscreen HTML5 Layout

by Willam Van Weelden

 

Multiscreen HTML5 is a new Single Source Layout found in Adobe RoboHelp 10. Multiscreen HTML5 is an output that is accessible on just about any kind of device including desktop and laptop computers running Windows or the Macintosh operating systems, iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices.

 

If you want to control the appearance of Multiscreen HTML5 layouts, there are Screen Layouts, which are often compared to WebHelp Skins. If you've ever used a WebHelp Skin, you know that it is pretty easy to customize the look and feel of the skin via RoboHelp's Skin Editor. Screen Layouts differ from WebHelp skins in that there is no Skin Editor. Instead, there's a Screen Layout Editor, which isn't nearly as intuitive as the Skin Editor, making customizing a Screen Layout a challenge. For instance, if you want to control something as simple as the search results highlight color, you'll need to edit from within the Screen Layout Editor, which is essentially an HTML page.

 

In the image below, notice the default highlight color in the Desktop_Layout Screen Layout.

 

 

 

If you want to change the highlight color you need to determine which colors you want to use. You need a background color and a font color for highlighted text, for example light blue and black.

 

The Screen Layout needs these colors in a hexadecimal format, which is a way to represent color using letters and numbers. For example, #000000 is the hexadecimal format you would use in HTML coding to create the color black. You can find the hexadecimal value of your colors with the free color calculator by Peter Jones.

 

Here is how you change the highlight color for a layout:

1. With a RoboHelp project open, go to the Project Set-up pod.
2. Open Screen Layouts > Desktop_Layout > Search results page.
    
3. On the Search results page, scroll down and click the checkbox before the text Highlight Search Results.
    
4. Right-click the checkbox and choose Screen Layout Properties. (The Properties will appear at the right side of the RoboHelp window by default.)
    
5. Type the hexadecimal value for the Highlight Color you would like to use. (For example: #EAEFF3 is a light blue color.)
    
6. Type the hexadecimal value for the Font Color. (For example: #000000 is black.)
7. Save the project and generate.

The search highlight will now use your specified colors.

 

 

 

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe RoboHelp 10: Ping the LNG

by Kevin Siegel  

I received the following email from a RoboHelp developer:

"Hi Kevin,

I've been developing user assistance in RoboHelp for many years and that means converting the sites every time I get the latest version of RoboHelp. 

RoboHelp does a good job moving things from version to version, but I have one small thing that occurs on old sites that I can't figure out how to fix. When I export an older site to Word, the Table of Contents heading exports as "Table Of Contents." Do you have any idea how to change it to "Table of Contents?" I can't find a place to access that title and change the capital "O" in "Of" to lower case. Do you have any idea how I can revise the heading?

Thanks for any information you can give me. This isn't critical, just annoying."

This person is referring to the Word document that results when you generate Printed Documentation via RoboHelp's Single Source Layouts pod. If you elect to include a TOC on the Section Layout screen, the TOC you created in the RoboHelp project will appear in the Word document.

  

There is a little-known area within RoboHelp where you can control the text that appears as the TOC heading in the Printed Documentation... the Language List file (LNG).

1. Choose File > Project Settings.
2. On the General tab, click Advanced Settings.
3. Select the LNG File tab.
4. Scroll down to the [PrintedDoc] section.
5. Select the TableOfContent entry and click the Edit button.
6. Edit the text to the right of the equal sign and press [enter]. 
    

When you generate the Printed Documentation, the heading for the TOC will reflect the edit you made to the LNG file.

 

Note: You can always restore the default settings to the LNG File by clicking the Reset to Default button on the LNG File tab (shown after step 6 above).

***

Looking to learn RoboHelp quickly? I teach a live, online Introduction to Adobe RoboHelp class once each month.

Adobe RoboHelp 9: Update to ePub Zip

It was recently brought to my attention that users working through my Adobe Robohelp HTML 9: The Essentials book ran into trouble on page 278 (during the ePub activity).

When I wrote the RoboHelp 9 book, 7za was the utility that Adobe used to assist in the creation of ePub files. On page 278 of my book, users are instructed to browse for the 7za file (which I included within the book's data files folder). The problem is that Adobe released a service patch (9.02) about 9 months after the book was released and ended up replacing 7za with another utility called zip.exe.

Anyone using the patched version of RoboHelp hit a brick wall when trying to load 7za since RoboHelp 9.02 requires zip.exe.

Here is the workaround: Click the Open in browser button (as shown in the screen shot on page 278 of my RoboHelp 9 book) and save the zip.exe utility to your computer. On page 278 of the book, use zip.exe instead of 7za. If you are having trouble grabbing the zip.exe utility via your web browser, here is a direct link to zip.exe.

The good news is that the ePub feature is totally integrated in the new RoboHelp 10, and there isn’t a zip utility required at all.

Adobe RoboHelp: Pining to Pin?

by Kevin Siegel  

When I use a program frequently, I tend to pin the program to my Taskbar for quick access. If you've never pinned an application to the Taskbar, it's a simple process. On Windows 7, click the Start button on the Taskbar and find the program you'd like to pin. Instead of starting the application, right-click the application's icon and choose Pin to Taskbar. From that point forward, you will be able to start the application by clicking its shortcut on the Taskbar. 

  

In the image below, you can see icons for applications that I use every day, and have pinned to my Taskbar. (For instance, at the far right you can see Adobe Captivate 6 and Adobe FrameMaker 11.)

Of course, I use Adobe RoboHelp every day too. And I was bummed out when I went to pin RoboHelp to my Taskbar and did not see the Pin to Taskbar menu item. What gives? Was there something within RoboHelp's code that prevented pinning? Was my Taskbar somehow inadequate? Perhaps there is a limit to the number of applications I am allowed to pin?

It turns out that the issue is quite simple. According to the folks at Adobe (who I contacted about this), applications containing the word "help" cannot be pinned to the Taskbar. Since RoboHelp is called, well... RoboHelp, that's the end of that.

Not so fast...

While applications with the word "Help" in the name cannot be pinned to the Taskbar, the folks at Adobe told me that it's simple enough to change RoboHelp's name on the computer (without fouling up anything at all).

Find RoboHelp's application icon by clicking Start (just as you would any other application). Once again, don't start the application. Instead, right-click the icon and chooseProperties. On the General tab, change the name to something similar to RoboHelp HTML, except don't use Help. I changed my RoboHelp icon to simply RoboHTML.

  

After clicking the OK button, I was able to right-click the RoboHTML icon and, eureka, Pin toTaskbar was an available menu item. I am happy to report that RoboHelp (I mean RoboHTML) is now in its rightful home, alongside Captivate and FrameMaker.

 

*** 

Looking to learn Adobe RoboHelp quickly? I offer a live, online class covering RoboHelp once each month. It's a two-day class, and provides an awesome jump-start to using this fantastic tool.

Adobe RoboHelp 10: ePubs Even Easier

by Kevin Siegel  

The ability to get an ePub out of a RoboHelp project was okay in RoboHelp 8 and easier and more reliable in RoboHelp 9. However, the ePub process just didn't seem to fully integrated within RoboHelp. For instance, in RoboHelp 9, you created an ePub layout on the Single Source Layouts pod, but you didn't use the layout to generate the physical ePub. To do that, you visited the File menu and choseGenerate > ePub.

Once you had your ePub, you needed to use a few different processes to both validate the ePub (ePub's will not be accepted by most vendors, such as the Apple iBookstore, unless the ePubs validate) and convert it to the mobi format for use on the Amazon Kindle. Neither of these processes were available in RoboHelp. To validate my ePubs, I have always used a free tool provided by the International Digital Publishing Forum. To convert to the mobi format, I used a converter found in Calibre, a free ePub reader.

In RoboHelp 10, the process of creating an ePub is seamless! If you visit the Single Source Layouts pod, you'll notice that there is an eBook layout by default.

 

Double-click the eBook layout and the eBook Settings will open.



The most significant options for me were located in the General group. When creating the eBook, I can generate both the EPUB format (version 3, which is the latest and greatest format) and the Kindle Book format. (There's no longer a need to take my ePub into Calibre.)

 

Just as awesome, take a look a bit lower down the dialog box and you'll see two options for validating the ePub and Kindle files.

 

All I have to do is click the Save and Generate button and RoboHelp does all of the heavy lifting. 

If this were any easier, I wouldn't have to show up for work. Hey Adobe, in RoboHelp 11, is there any chance you can work it out so that RoboHelp actually does all of the writing for me? Thanks.

*** 

Looking to learn RoboHelp 10 quickly? We will begin offering RoboHelp 10 classes in September. If you are usingRoboHelp 8 or RoboHelp 9, we are offering one more class for you later this month.

Adobe RoboHelp 10: Multiscreen HTML5

by Kevin Siegel  

Adobe recently released Adobe RoboHelp 10. There is plenty to love in this new release, and I'll be covering some of my favorite new features in the coming weeks.

First up, Multiscreen HTML5. Create a new project in RoboHelp 10 and check out the Single Source Layouts pod. You'll find a new layout named Multiscreen HTML5. Generate this layout and your content can be consumed by just about any computer or mobile device (even the Apple mobile devices).

Show the Properties of the layout (right-click > Properties), expand the Screen Profiles group at the left, and you'll see that there are already settings for several devices including iPad, iPhone, Kindle and the desktop. If the device you need isn't listed, you can use the Add Screen Profile(s) button to add as many as you need.

 

As you are working on your Help System, you can get a feel for how your content will look on each device by right-clicking the layout on the Single Source Layouts pod and choosing View with Screen Profile.



In the image below, I wanted to see how my RoboHelp project would look when consumed via an Apple iPad. I used RoboHelp to convert my FrameMaker content to HTML5. Shown below is how my new Adobe Captivate 6: The Essentials book looks on an iPad via HTML5 (the book will be available as an ePub soon).



The ability to output content for just about any kind of display is a huge deal, and I commend Adobe for implementing the feature so elegantly. In my opinion, this feature alone makes RoboHelp 10 a mandatory upgrade for those of you running legacy versions of RoboHelp... and a must-buy for all of you tire-kickers out there.

*** 

Looking to learn RoboHelp 10 quickly? We will begin offering RoboHelp 10 classes in September.

Adobe Robohelp 10 Now Available

Adobe's Ankur Jain has written a quick overview of some of the new features found in Adobe RoboHelp 10. 

Some of the highlights: Publish to multiple screens/devices using Multiscreen HTML5, End-to-end workflow with SharePoint, improved eBooks workflow and several enhancements to existing features. 

Read more.

 

Adobe RoboHelp: Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Creating a Help System

Neil Perlin has written a well-rounded white paper covering the top mistakes Help authors make when creating a Help System.

Among the mistakes:

• Not developing mechanisms to support content consistency
• Not developing mechanisms to support format consistency
• Not revisiting project design in light of 'environmental' changes
• Not planning to test QA (Quality Assurance) and usability
• Not planning to create an index  

Read more