Placing content on a web server

[autoims-trial]

We have a similar situation as was in the 1st post where we want to link to the help file created in roboHelp from our JSP page hosted on our weblogic server. How can we do this?

What are the possible file extensions that are generated from the roboHelp software? I tried dropping the ".chm" file to our war directory on our app server but somehow can't view this file. The page shows up with some garbage characters. How can we view this help file correctly?

I tried setting the mime type in our web.xml file but it still doesn't seem to work.

Appreciate your response on this! Thanks.

[johndaigle]

Hi. It is unclear what version of RoboHelp you are using. We need more info on your environment and what you're trying to achieve. Also, I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Weblogic or "war directories". Sorry.

Meanwhile, .CHM is not a proper format for web server delivered help so I'm confused about why that is being attempted. Microsoft's CHM format is meant to be installed on the end user's desktop. If you mean you want to call topics from a JSP application, you should take a look at this URL which explains the context sensitive help process and how to use the CSH APIs.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp/robohtml/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59c571-8000.html

Thanks

John Daigle
Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor
Evergreen, Colorado
www.showmethedemo.com

[autoims-trial]

John,

Thanks for your response!

This is our platform - Weblogic is our web application server where we host JSP/HTML files in the war directory of this server. We have downloaded RoboHelp 9.

One of our colleague used RoboHelp in his school project and that's how we came to know about this product. He has created a file using RoboHelp with extension ".chm" . I tried putting this file on our web server but it doesn’t seem to recognize the extension and I see all garbage chars on the browser. I tried setting the mime type but it doesn't make any difference. What are all the possible file extensions that can be created using RoboHelp?

Here is what we need...

We want to create a help file for our web site using RoboHelp 9 and then we should be able to link to that help file from a JSP or an HTML file. Will we be able to do without downloading anything on the client computer?

Appreciate your response on this email.

Thanks,

Vimala Shirur

[johndaigle]

Hi, Vimala

Since you are new to RoboHelp I can understand how there may be some confusion. The student was evidently using something called the MS HTML Layout (which produces .chm installed locally) instead of the more appropriate, WebHelp which is published to traditional web servers.

Here is the process:

1. The RoboHelp author should click View > Pods > Single Source Layouts
2. Then, right click on the WebHelp item and set it as the "Primary Layout"
3. Now double click the WebHelp item and make the preferred choices in the following screens.
4. Click Save and Generate

This will create the content appropriate for web delivery. By default, the content will show up in your RoboHelp project directory under !SSL!\WebHelp.

Obviously there is a great deal more to it than that, but you will need to read documentation or take training to go deeper. Because you are providing help to a JSP application, you will want to look at the online help topic which discusses using the JAVA CSH API.

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/robohelp/robohtml/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59c571-8000.html

Especially the section: Information for Developers.

For basic understanding of RoboHelp, check out Rick Stone's inexpensive Goober Guides to get you started.

http://www.gooberguides.com/products/robohelp/

John Daigle
Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor
Evergreen, Colorado
www.showmethedemo.com