Search and Index do not work properly on Macintosh

[Guest]

We have used RoboHelp for many years. We currently use RoboHelp 5. We bought it because we need to generate WebHelp to be used on Windows and Macintosh. WebHelp has never generated Search and Index properly. We contacted eHelp, then Macromedia about the problem and even joined the Beta Program for Mac. All to no avail. Does anyone know when Adobe is going to fix this problem? The RoboHelp people tell you that it works, just different. Ya, the "different" is that it doesn't work. Our cross platform users constantly complain about this issue. Everyone knows how its supposed to work. It's supposed to work like the user experience on Windows. This is not a cheap product, and we have required our international partners to use RoboHelp also. We probably have $12,000 to $15,000 invested in this product. Anyone have any ideas?

[Captiv8r]

Hi dbilowusm and welcome to our community

You know, I really do wish someone here had a solid answer as to when exactly that Adobe will be releasing a new version. Unfortunately, until time grows closer, none of us will know until we grow nearer their first estimate, which I believe is first half or first quarter of 2007? There is much to be done.

But let's focus just a bit on the issue at hand. You are saying that the Index and Search aren't working? I'm guessing that you are seeing the "alphabet index and alphabet search" here, where these items are presented as links and not fields where you type as you do in Internet Explorer. Are you saying the links don't work when you click them, or just that you don't like the way it's presented?

Cheers... Rick 🙂

[Guest]

Rick: Unfortunately, your question is in the same vein that all prior responses from RoboHelp. Web help on Mac needs to look and work the same way on Mac as it does on Windows. On Mac, there is no field into which a user enters a search term. It just gives you a big list and and the alphabet at the top. This is not like the user experience on Windows. It is blatantly obvious to anyone, including our users, that the user experience on Mac is not like on Windows. They continue to call and email us about the Search and Index "not working". For example, in search, users want to enter a search term and have the software return only the items that are relavant to that term. On Mac there is no way to enter a search term. All items are returned, it just gives you a big list and and the alphabetat the top. Many of our users are cross platform. They know what it is supposed to do because in the Windows version of our program WebHelp "works". We have a very extensive help system and the way it currently works is not what we or our users expect. The foreign language versions are still another issue.

[Peter Grainge]

Welcome to the forum.

There have been a number of posts to the forum about mac problems and a couple of times I have replied that I believe I saw somewhere that Mac OS 10.3 is the problem. Trouble is so far nobody has replied to confirm or deny that.

Can you try the help you have created on both 10.2 and 10.3?

Please post back either way. If I am wrong, hopefully someone with mac knowledge can add something more.

[Guest]

Peter: This has always been a problem on Mac. No matter what version of the OS. We are very experienced on Mac. And for that matter very experienced on RoboHelp. This is not a problem with our build. This is not a problem with the Macintosh OS: it never worked with any Mac OS. It is not a browser problem: it has the same behavior using Safari, Firefox, OmniWeb, Netscape, and Internet Explorer. This is solely a RoboHelp problem. I will be at Apple's WWDC in San Francisco in August and would love to meet with someone from RoboHelp about this issue.

[Peter Grainge]

I understood our merged webhelp had been tested on a Mac. I'll check that out tomorrow if the right people are in the office.

[Peter Grainge]

I've had a look at our webhelp on a Mac for myself.

INDEX: It lists all the index words in the same way as on a PC. What is different is that on a PC you can type to fasttrack to an index word, on the Mac you have to click a letter and look at the available words. It does however work althoughit is different, but then so is a lot about Macs.

SEARCH: This is very different and the best way to describe it is an index of the search words. So it is not search in my book but it does allow you to find any word in the text, albeit not in a very elegant way.

Is that what you get and mean when you say it does not work?

UPDATE: Having looked again at your reply to Rick, that is what you are seeing. What I would like to know is do you also see that under 10.3 and 10.4 or did it get worse with the OS upgrades?

[HKabaker]

I agree with analyses in dbilowusm's and Peter's latest posts.

An added note: The alphabet index and search format will appear on older IE browsers, if anyone is stuck back in IE4 (and maybe or IE5 before 5.5).

I believe it's because the "normal" behavior uses RH's (Microsoft's?) dynamic html to put several lists together on the fly before displaying the whole thing.

PC browsers can handle the dynamic html, while MAC browsers cannot. So RH provides an the alphabet file for Search and Index, each containingh the entire list, for Mac and any generic PC browser that may need them.

I hope (dan, debbie, don or whoever) can report on RH behavior under OS X 10.3 and later. Same?

Thanks

Harvey

[Captiv8r]

Hi again dbilowusm

So WebHelp on a Mac isn't "broken", it just doesn't work like it does in Internet Explorer.

This strikes me as odd. Comical, even. I always thought Mac users took great pride in the fact that their OS and most things about it weren't close to what the dreaded Windows users saw.

Sorry, but this is simply the behavior on some operating systems. Yes, in a perfect world, it would behave identically across the board. In a perfect world. To be honest, (and I'm speaking as a simple user here and not a RoboHelp suck up or fan) I'm amazed at the fact it does as well as it does across the board and different operating systems. Actually, I don't ever recall seeing any advertisement anywhere that said anything to the effect of "WebHelp is viewable and works identically on all platforms". The only thing I recall seeing is that "WebHelp is viewable" on all platforms.

I do agree with you, however, that improvements in this area would be well received.

Cheers and happy Friday... Rick