User Commenting

[tkdonovan]

I have a small company that is going to dive into RoboHelp authoring. We have not used it before. One of the features we need is the ability for help users to be able to comment on content. As I understand it, this is included as part of the AirHelp system. What I'm confused about is if this is mandatory or is there a way to allow user commenting/reporting when Robohelp content is served as a web page (not from the Air app).

And perhaps I"m confusing terms and such, so bear with me. Our intention is to have our help available from a website, such as "CompanyXManuals.com". We then want visitors to be able to comment on content, just like I see Adobe has on its own online help via the "Discuss this page" link and form on all its online help.

How can I build exactly what Adobe does for its own online help regarding the commting portion? Will Robohelp/Robohelp server get me there? What about for tablets and smart phones? Thanks!

[johndaigle]

Hi and glad to see you're diving into RoboHelp. At this time, AIR Help is the only output format that enables commenting. The reason for this is that comments are generally stored first, locally and then "synched up" with a central storage area so that all administrators and/or end users can see the comments (depending on who you want to see the comments). This is technically more complicated than simple "WebHelp" delivered from a conventional web server. There are security issues as well. Therefore, AIR Help's security model (digital signatures) facilitates this need. Right now, the only other way around it is to subscribe (for money) to a third party service like DisQus or some such to handle comments.

Adobe's implementation is custom-engineered and that's why you may see it on their websites, or in their version of AIR Help technology (Adobe Community Help).

But, things change rapidly these days! So, please enter a feature request and perhaps a solution may come in a future release.

RoboHelp Wish Form/Bug Reporting Form

John Daigle

Adobe Certified RoboHelp and Captivate Instructor

Evergreen, Colorado

www.showmethedemo.com

[tkdonovan]

Thanks for the feedback.

You mentioned Disqus. I don't mind allocating money for this. Do you happen to know if Disqus can be integrated into RH enough to be smart about context? For example, let's say a user is on a specific page of RH content and they decide to comment on it. Can Disqus be set up to inform the moderator or webmaster which page the user was when they commented?

And does Disqus have moderation tools and thorough reporting? I've looked at their site a bit and will continue to do so, but I figured I'd ask.

Our goal is to provide online technical manuals that end users can provide feedback on to ensure accuracy.

—Thad Donovan

Partner/Creative Director

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You can also get feedback by including some code to generate a "context-aware" e-mail back to somebody in the HTML. Search the forum for discussions on doing this.

[Peter Grainge]

You may not be aware but the browser based version of AIR Help does not support commenting, only the desktop version.

There is quite a lot of information about AIR Help on my site. Hope it helps.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[tkdonovan]

Interesting. So if I understand correctly, in order to leverage comments (using Adobe tools), our users will need to have Air installed (desktop version only, not browser version).

What about for tablets, smart phones? Is Air available on those or is commenting basically not an option on those devices when using Air?

—Thad Donovan

Partner/Creative Director

[Peter Grainge]

It's important to differentiate between AIR which is a development tool and AIR Help which is an application that Adobe have produced using the AIR technology. AIR Help  runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and is not supported on phones or tablets.

So yes, only desktops with locally installed AIR Help will have commenting.

My understanding of cloud commenting is that you will know the page the user was on and be able to moderate.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge