Which AirHelp option produces less output files?

[ROBOPM]

Hello All,

My help topics were created using RH8, and am looking into other web base help solution due to the large amount of files that Web Help currently outputs. For example, Adobe Air in RH8 has the following Output Types:

• Adobe Air Application,
• Browser based help,
• Air Application AND Browser based help, and
• Help Content.

My ultimate goal is simply to have a compact output file (e.g., like a CHM file) so my developer can incorporate into his workflow solution (SharePoint 2010) to automatically deploy my web help to not just the central admin server but also all sub-servers. The initial approach of incorporating the help files (currently using RH WebHelp) into the install package did not address that scenario. Unfortunately, for him, he cannot dynamically include all the files into the solution; they must be included one-by-one, which is pain and will cause issues if new files are added later on. Hence, my inquiry to find another web help platform output to reduce the number of files needed to be included in the solution.

In closing, what do you recommend out of Adobe Air web help solution?

Thank you all for your time and consideration,

~PM

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Well, the locally installed flavour of AIRHelp only produces 1 file – the .air file. But I doubt that using that flavour is going to work for your developer. You probably want to invest in some sort of installation program (you may already own a copy of one of them anyway) that will package up all the resulting files into a one-file installer. Then the developer can invoke this silently to unpack and deploy your help content on the client’s server.

[ROBOPM]

Hello Jeff,

You stated that using Adobe Air Application there is only one output file ".air"; is this file similar to a 'CHM' file (your help topics encapsulated)? Our developers use InstallShield.

Thank you for responding,

~PM

[Peter Grainge]

Jeff will not be online yet. The AIR file is a single file but not the same as a CHM. A CHM is what the user opens. An AIR file is a bit like a zip file and it installs the AIR help on the user's PC as a program. Within Program Files, it looks much like WebHelp.

You will need a freely available licence from Adobe if you are also going to install the AIR runtime that will be needed. See the AIR topics on my site.

With that said, I don't think AIR of any type is your solution any more than a CHM is. The latter is designed to be run from the user's PC and not a server. See http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/chm_mspatch/896358.htm

Quite simply, short of a PDF help file, there isn't a single file help option designed to run from web servers. What seems odd here and where more information is needed is why your developer cannot upload webhelp. Something is not ringing right here.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[ROBOPM]

As always. thanks Peter for your detail responses!

Cheers!

~PM

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

If you’ve already got InstallShield, then you should be able to create a single self-extracting executable that contains all the files that make up your help system and deposit them wherever you specify. I use a product called Wise to do the same with my WebHelp project – it squishes down around 4600 files into a single installer.