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d.p.middleton
d.p.middleton
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CS5.5 help titles visible in CS6 Adobe Help Manager

May 9, 2012 7:11 AM

Dear  Community Help Team,

 

After my upgrade from CS5.5 to CS6, old Help titles were still visible in the Download Preferences section of the Help Manager.

 

I removed the complete CS5.5 suite to ensure a clean install of CS6. Unfortunately, the Adobe de-installation script does not clean up the CS5.5 files in the C:\Users\<name>\AppData folder of Windows 7. The same happened after my upgrade from CS4 to CS5.5.

 

Fortunately, I was able to fix the issues myself:

 

I went to:

C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\chc.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B32048 5DF8CE.1\Local Store\HelpCfg\en_US

 

Apparently, the Help Topics are built from the contents of this folder.

 

I removed the old .helpcfg files. If a help file is not included in Adobe Help > Download Preferences, I added them manually by going to e.g. this folder:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\HelpCfg\en_US

 

And copied the required .helpcfg file to the folder mentioned above.

 

Is there a possibility to remove old Help titles in the next de-installation script of a future CS product?

 

Cheers,

 

 

Dave

2117 Views   10 Replies   Latest reply: Todd_Kopriva, Jun 30, 2012 5:17 PM
 
Replies
  • Kirsti Aho
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    1. Kirsti Aho,
    May 11, 2012 9:37 AM   in reply to d.p.middleton
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    Hi, Dave,

     

    I think you may have the right set of content.  We've taken a different approach our help "package."  Since much of the help content is the same for CS5 and CS6, we've actually combined all the articles together.  Each article indicates which product version(s) apply.  Any CS5 features that were substantially changed for CS6 will indicate CS6 only.

     

    Kirsti

    Adobe Community Help & Learning team

     
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  • d.p.middleton
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    2. d.p.middleton,
    May 11, 2012 11:34 AM   in reply to Kirsti Aho
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    Hi Kirsti,

     

    Thank you for your timely response and explanation of the new approach.

     

    I understand your new approach from a development cost perspective. Unfortantely, as a customer I am not happy with this approach.

    1. Firstly, is not very intuitive and also confusing for customers of the new product. What if I am a first time customer? I don't have any reference to the old product.
    2. Secondly, it requires more work for the customer to understand how the system works; I need to figure out the old way and than compare it to the new way.
    3. At last, I bought a new product and I got there by upgrading, so I expect to find help titles that concern CS6 and not CS5.5. The latter suggests old left-overs. I expect a consolidation of old help content with new content, in one consistent package. It's a manual for a new product, not release documentation. Even a new car model comes with one manual and not two; one for the old model and one with small changes compared to the old one.

     

    Kind Regads,

     

     

    Dave

     
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  • Kirsti Aho
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    3. Kirsti Aho,
    May 11, 2012 12:13 PM   in reply to d.p.middleton
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    First, I do want to reassure you that all the help you see is relevant to CS6 products. 

     

    Second, I do understand the three concerns you expressed about the changes in CS6 help.  I will definitely take them back to the broader team.

     

    --Kirsti

     
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  • d.p.middleton
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    4. d.p.middleton,
    May 11, 2012 12:30 PM   in reply to Kirsti Aho
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    Hi Kirsti,

     

    Thanks again.

     

    I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.

     

    Kind Regards,

     

     

    Dave

     
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  • Alan Shutko
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    5. Alan Shutko,
    May 15, 2012 11:39 AM   in reply to Kirsti Aho
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    Sometimes, the CS5 help is very misleading when it comes to CS6. For example, the only overview for working with video in Photoshop is from CS5, but it states many things that are no longer true, like

     

    You can work only with the visual images in a video file, not the audio.

    The "new video features in CS6" article does mention the new features, but what we've lost is the ability to find a single comprehensive discussion of the features. Instead, I'm left to try to combine a bunch of different articles and videos to put together the picture.

     

    Fortunately, there are many non-Adobe sources with information, but this seems like a step backward. I used to check Adobe help first to find an answer, and went to google only if I needed some extra help. Right now, I'm going to google since I can't find things in Adobe help.

     
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  • d.p.middleton
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    6. d.p.middleton,
    May 15, 2012 12:13 PM   in reply to Alan Shutko
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    I have to agree with you.This weekend I wanted to find out where the new image trace options are in Illustrator CS6 and I could not find it in the documentation or video files. I figured it out myself, but this defeats the purpose of having a help manual at all.

     
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  • Mark Wheeler
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    7. Mark Wheeler,
    May 15, 2012 1:06 PM   in reply to Alan Shutko
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    ats@acm.org wrote:

     

    Sometimes, the CS5 help is very misleading when it comes to CS6. For example, the only overview for working with video in Photoshop is from CS5, but it states many things that are no longer true, like

     

    You can work only with the visual images in a video file, not the audio.

     

    In an effort to improve search, Adobe has combined Help for CS5 and CS6 in the same navigation structure. Let us know what you think of this approach. Versions are typically identified in page titles, as in the page you refer to above.

    ats@acm.org wrote:

     

    The "new video features in CS6" article does mention the new features, but what we've lost is the ability to find a single comprehensive discussion of the features. Instead, I'm left to try to combine a bunch of different articles and videos to put together the picture.

    Over time, we'll link to and embed more and more video tutorials directly in the Help topics themselves. Will that address your main concern, or is there another form of content you'd prefer to see?

     
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  • Alan Shutko
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    8. Alan Shutko,
    May 15, 2012 1:23 PM   in reply to Mark Wheeler
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    I generally prefer some comprehensive reference documentation in text form, with demos and howtos in video form.  That way, I can quickly skim the text if I'm looking for something specific.

     

    If the videos also had complete transcripts, those might work as well, but text works better for me.

     

    My main frustration above was that in order to understand how to deal with video in CS6, I first need to read the CS5 documentation and understand that, then read the What's New article to see what's changed, and put them together in my mind. For example, I was wondering whether there was an easy way to freeze the video on a frame for a few seconds and then let it keep playing. If there were a single comprehensive article I could look through it and figure out if there was a command built in or not. As it is, I have to go looking through multiple articles, and I'm never quite sure if the answer I'm looking for is in a different article I just didn't find yet.

     

    I miss the outline and organization from previous incarnations of help. That created a structure, and I could go to a section and read through multiple related articles in order.  The structure seems to be gone now.

     
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  • d.p.middleton
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    9. d.p.middleton,
    May 15, 2012 2:31 PM   in reply to Alan Shutko
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    To answer Marc's question:

    "In an effort to improve search, Adobe has combined Help for CS5 and CS6 in the same navigation structure. Let us know what you think of this approach. Versions are typically identified in page titles, as in the page you refer to above."

     

    I looked into this using my previous search query: "image trace" for Illustrator CS6.In the search results list I see the CS version number in the title of the articles. I think this is a nice way of catering for different audiences of CS versions in one integrated search function.

     

    However, I am not sure whether the search results are ordered by version number and I am not sure if I require a CS version in my query to get my answers. Remember, I arrived at the Community Help website through a link in one of the CS6 applications, Illustrator that is.Furthermore what I would like to see as an improvement is facetted search. Here, search results are ordered by topics such as CS version and similar results topics such as "image trace" and "live trace" in my example.Now I have to scroll down a long list to find what I was looking for.

     

    I agree with ATS's previous post and I would like to emphesize the same point (item 2 in my previous post) again. 

     

    No matter how well search is improved in Community Help, we do need a comprehensive manual with text, images and instructions that deals with CS6 functionality. If the manual was not ready at the time of shipping CS6, the product is not ready for shipping..

     

    I also need to have a pdf manual ready for offline reading as well. On the moment there is none yet. If my internet connection drops, I am on my own. Not nice for first time users.

     

    CS5.5 came with a complete help manual; in Community Help as well as a pdf. You cannot expect us to figure out the differences based on articles of CS5 and CS6. If we continue the current apporach, imagine three CS versions from now where we have to revert to old version articles.Again this not nice for first time customers.

     

    Moreover, in my example where I search for image trace options in Illustrator CS6, I cannot revert to the old articles because the whole functionality (and algorithms) has been changed. There are no articles about the new function: only a few paragraphs and a video link.

     

    I do like embeded video tutorials in any future articles of Community Help. I think that has added value over a static pdf manual. It invites users to come to the Community Help website.

     

    Cheers,

     

     

    Dave


     


     
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  • Todd_Kopriva
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    10. Todd_Kopriva,
    Jun 30, 2012 5:17 PM   in reply to d.p.middleton
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    Here are links to the documents for all CS6 applications, in both PDF and HTML format:

    http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining/2010/08/help-documents-for- creative-suite-5-pdf-and-html.html

     
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