The two most commonly used features in a Help System are typically the Index and Search tabs. One of the limitations of the Search feature has always been the inability to hook specific URLs to Search terms. I'm happy to say that the External Content Search feature puts that issue to rest in the new RoboHelp 9.
Using External Content Search, you can display content from specific URLs based on terms that users are likely to search. For instance, a company called South River Technologies (SRT) has a Help system and they would like to set it up so that if a user searches for the word webdrive (one of SRTs products), they'll be presented with a link that will take them to a web page showing the word webdrive as it relates specifically to South River Technologies.
If you were SRTs Help author, here is how you could set up the External Content Search in RoboHelp 9.
Click the Advanced Search button and only web pages that contain the word webdrive and the wording south river technologies will be listed. Select and copy the URL in the address bar to the clipboard (you will be pasting it within RoboHelp shortly).
Using RoboHelp 9, choose View > Pods > Project Setup. Double-click External Content Search to open the External Content Search dialog box.
Click the Add button. Change the Title to webdrive. In the Search Terms field, type webdrive. In the URL field, delete the current entry and paste the URL that you copied from the Google Advanced Search. In the Description field, type Search the web for the term webdrive as it relates to SRT.
On the Single Source Layouts pod, double-click your layout and select the Search group. Then select Enable External Content Search.
Click the Save and Generate button and, when ready, click the View Result button. On the Search tab, type webdrive and press [Enter]. Click the lone result to display the Google Search results.
The thing that I really found cool about RoboHelp's External Content Search, especially using a Search engine results URL, like the one you copied from Google, is that the results will automatically update for your users when Google's search algorithms get updated (which is frequently).
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Is it possible to have i.e. a google search engine in webhelp?
Posted by: Michal | April 27, 2012 at 04:30 AM
That is exactly what is shown in this post. :)
Posted by: Kevin Siegel | May 05, 2012 at 08:06 AM