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heavyboots
heavyboots
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Getting help without AIR for CS5.5

Oct 24, 2011 10:57 AM

So... the org I work for disables AIR at an enterprise level. As in, automated search bots scan your machine at night and delete AIR while you're not looking. Plus, we aren't allowed admin rights to reinstall such dangerous software...

 

At any rate, long story short is that NOW (too late) I realize that AIR is required to run the stupid Adobe Help app that Flash and all the other Suite apps rely on as I can no longer launch the Help app at all!

 

Is there any way for me to specify that all Adobe apps use external browser help and/or local help? IT dude is busy seeing if he can find a copy of AIR to install that matches the specs on the one from the CS5.5 suite he installed. Because, you know, naturally it's not allowed to just reinstall AIR without installing over something in the Suite again. But I am hoping there is a more elegant solution?

 

Thanks in advance...

 

(BTW, congratulations to the engineers on this one--another defeat ripped from the jaws of victory! In CS4, this used to be a simple setting in the Extensions area of Flash that allowed easy enabling of local help only...)

1303 Views   11 Replies   Latest reply: jfrancis@adobe.com, Oct 27, 2011 3:53 PM
 
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  • Mark Nichoson
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    1. Mark Nichoson,
    Oct 24, 2011 11:56 AM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi: Help should display in you default system browser if the AIR client is not available. And if the network is closed or not available, it should default to local help.

     

    If you prefer, you can manually download either the HTML or PDF versions of the Help packages here: http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/08/help-documents-for- creative-suite-5-pdf-and-html.html

     

    You can use the HTML or PDF as a stand-alone package or you can place them in the following locations/directories for full compatibility with your CS5.5 application:

     

    MAC OSX: /[username]/Library/Preferences/chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 / Local Store / Help / en_US /

     

    Windows: %appdata%/chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 / Local Store / Help / en_US /

     

    One more thing: your IT contact should review this technote on manually configuring Help for closed network environments - http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/849/cpsid_84992.html

     
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  • heavyboots
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    2. heavyboots,
    Oct 24, 2011 3:18 PM   in reply to Mark Nichoson
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    Hi Mark,

     

    Thanks for the quick and helpful response!

     

    I will definitely dispute the claim that you automatically get external and/or local help if AIR isn't available because I was launching Adobe Help and getting the "This application requires a version of AIR which cannot be found", but in Flash, hitting F1, selecting Help from the menu etc all just did nothing. Perhaps just the way that AIR was disabled, but FYI, it doesn't always seem to fail gracefully the way you guys are expecting it to.

     

    At any rate, we've got most everything set up here finally, but there is one last item that is driving me nuts. In CS4, I could hit F1 on any keyword and it would automatically take me to the correct page after looking up the keyword for me in the local help. This doesn't appear to be the case in CS5.5. Instead I just get taken to the main page "Welcome to Help" page.

     

    EDIT: Actually, it's a little different then I initially thought.

     

    - Some keywords such as File.documentsDirectory just take me to the front "Welcome" page.

    - Other keywords, like addEventListener, take me to incorrect pages. In this case the page for flash.data.SQLConnection. The phrase "addEventListener" isn't even on the page if I do control-F and search for it.

    - And finally, a few of them actually take me to the right page, but with missing info. FileStream.readMultiByte takes me to the FileStream area, but with all the info in Event Detail, Method Detail etc blank. In those cases, I get a couple of error messages:

     

    

    Message: Invalid character
Line: 1
Char: 1
Code: 0
URI: file:///C:/en_US/shared/ahpods/AHPod.js


Message: Object expected
Line: 1
Char: 49
Code: 0
URI: file:///C:/Users/[some.user]/AppData/Roaming/chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1/Local%20Store/Help/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/filesystem/FileStream.html?filter_flash=cs5.5&filter_flashplayer=10.3&filter_air=2.6&

     

    Thanks in advance!

    Eric.

     
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  • jfrancis@adobe.com
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    3. jfrancis@adobe.com,
    Oct 24, 2011 4:02 PM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi Eric,

     

    I work with Mark at Adobe. I'll need to get an AIR-less install of Flash CS5.5 set up and then I'll see if I can help. I'll be in contact directly.

     

    Regards,

    John Francis

    Adobe Systems, Inc.

     
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  • jfrancis@adobe.com
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    4. jfrancis@adobe.com,
    Oct 24, 2011 4:26 PM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi Eric,

     

    Are you working with Flash 5.5 in online or offline mode with respect to the help?

     

    Thanks!

    John Francis

     
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  • heavyboots
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    5. heavyboots,
    Oct 24, 2011 4:28 PM   in reply to jfrancis@adobe.com
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    Hi John,

     

    Much appreciated! It will be interesting to see if you get the same results. We've got multiple machines here behaving the same way.

     

    Thanks,

    Eric.

     
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  • heavyboots
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    6. heavyboots,
    Oct 24, 2011 5:05 PM   in reply to jfrancis@adobe.com
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    Whoops, didn't see that last message load when I posted. I am currently working in offline mode—that is to say, I have had Adobe Help download all local content and set it to use external browser and local help only.

     

    I suspect by tomorrow the settings will be permenent as AIR will be nuked off my machine again sometime tonight.

     
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  • jfrancis@adobe.com
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    7. jfrancis@adobe.com,
    Oct 25, 2011 7:34 AM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi Eric,

     

    Still looking into this.

     

    Thanks!

    John Francis

     
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  • jfrancis@adobe.com
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    8. jfrancis@adobe.com,
    Oct 25, 2011 9:20 AM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi Eric,

     

    We're escalating this to the help engineering team. Stay tuned and thanks for your patience!

     

    John Francis

     
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  • jfrancis@adobe.com
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    9. jfrancis@adobe.com,
    Oct 26, 2011 10:54 AM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi Eric,

     

    We're still looking into this, but I thought I'd provide my test findings.

    1. I began by nuking my chc.REALLYLONGID local store folder.
    2. I then installed Flash CS5.5, ran the CHC and downloaded all of the available help packages.
    3. I verified that your test cases were working in the online environment with CHC enabled.
    4. I then disconnected my PC from the network and tried the Actions Panel online help. One thing I notice is that launching the CHC was very sluggish. However, all of my tests launched to the correct package->class->method|property in the CHC, including your test cases.
    5. Next, I uninstalled AIR and reran my Actions Panel tests. Again, launching the browser in response to a help command was very sluggish. I also noticed that the browser would only open a particular package rather than scrolling to the appropriate method|property within that package.

    Again, I've reported my findings as well as yours to our CHC engineering team. If you notice anything else be sure to let me know.

     

    Thanks!

    John Francis

     
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  • heavyboots
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    10. heavyboots,
    Oct 26, 2011 1:49 PM   in reply to jfrancis@adobe.com
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    Hi John,

     

    Thanks for looking into this so thoroughly. We're all still seeing the same results here, but it must be the idiosyncracies of our install environment. I will get with our IT guy again and see if he has any ideas to make it act less strangely.

     

    Thanks again,

    Eric.

     
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  • jfrancis@adobe.com
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    11. jfrancis@adobe.com,
    Oct 27, 2011 3:53 PM   in reply to heavyboots
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    Hi Eric,

     

    Got some info from our dev team. As far as the performance goes, they're looking into it (don't know if you had that problem actually). Regarding the anchors: apparently they're busted in IE and Chrome (they didn't seem to work for me in Firefox either). They should be working in Safari (but I don't know if you can install alternate browsers in your environment). That's a known bug which has been fixed in the current development cycle and should be deployed in November's ASR release.

     

    Regarding the errors and missing classes packages, what I would do (and I know it's a pain) is nuke your entire %appdata%/chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1/ folder. I'd then install AIR (temporarily, obviously), and re-run the CHC. You should then download all of the available packages again. Make sure they've finished downloading and extracting (which for the platform ASR can take some time). That should give you a nice fresh help installation. Once everything's integrated, test a few help references in the ActionsPanel using the CHC and make sure things are working as you expect. You can then uninstall AIR and make sure the browser is working (as well as it can be at this point).

     

    I'll keep an eye on this issue and let you know when an updated platform ASR is available.

     

    Thanks very much for your patience and don't hesitate to contact me if you have further issues.

     

    Regards,

    John Francis

     
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