RoboHelp 7 Online Help

[Carrie_V]

I'm evaluating RoboHelp 7 for my company to decide if we want to upgrade, I want to try some of the features that weren't in RoboHelp 5, which is what we're using. I downloaded the trial version and I'm using the online help to learn some new things. Every time I do a search I get sent to a page containing a message similar to this:

Your search for skins site: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHTML/7.0 did not match any documents. Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.

In the above case, I had searched for 'skins.' I've searched on a number of things that should return results such as, 'printed documentation' and 'snippets.' This seems like a minor issue, but I do use the search feature a lot in the online help and it's really frustrating that it's not working for me. Is anyone else experiencing this or is it just me?

Thanks! Carrie

[JBennettTX]

Carrie,

I had a similar experience. When I tried a search in the RoboHelp help, I got that Adobe page saying no results. However, if I repeat the search on the Adobe site with "RoboHelp 7" added to the search string, I get results. Unfortunately, some of the pages in those results have no navigation controls, so if you want to see a different page, you have to start over.

I set RH7 to use offline help (under Tools > Options), so the search function looks at the local documents. The online version seems a bit undercooked, for now...

JMB

[ginafromtampa]

I just purchased the Technical Communications suite and found the same problems with the Help search in RoboHelp 7. Thanks very much for the steps to go to the offline ("airplane") help.

[JBCampo]

Rick Stone responded to another post with a fix that may work for you. Try going to http://helpware.net/downloads/#MJs, MJ's Diagnostic. Run this tool to see if you have any unregistered DLLs. Even tho my report said my DLLs were all ok, after I ran it, Search did work, where previously it did not.

We are also testing RH7 to see if we can safely upgrade legacy projects from RH2002HTML. Another fix that seem to help some problems with TOCs that have merged projects is to compile the hhp in HTML Help Workshop.
Good luck.
JoeC

[karimc]

Thanks for the suggestion of the offline help tip - it saved on a lot of frustration.

I'm curious, though. With all of the interactive capabilities of the general Adobe product offerings, why is the text so bland? I would have expected at least a couple of Captivate movies or a few flash objects, but I couldn't find anything.

I am in the process if reviewing several similar products, and to be honest, the first place I went was the product's help text. I mean, if its a really fabulous help text product, the help files should be fabulous, right? They'd want to show off all they can do, right?

[JBCampo]

Karimc
This gets back to the basic issue of how much you think Adobe supports their Tech Doc authoring tools of RoboHelp and Frame, which is off topic from your original post.
But one can surmise that if it were a highly valuable product to a company, they would want to provide high quality help.
Good luck.
JoeC

[Akshay_Madan]

Thanks for bringing this to our notice. We shall fix this ASAP. Let me explain you the reason for references to http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHTML/7.0.

All the Help files of Adobe products are hosted on a Server - Adobe Help Center (//help.adobe.com) and can be viewed by anyone. Adobe RoboHelp 7 by default fetches the latest content from this site and displays it in the product. Even the Content Sensitive Help (CSH) is fetched from the Server. The Search is broken not in the product but on this Server and we need to fix the same.

- Akshay

[Paul_Griffiths]

Slightly off-topic, but the offline Help has an unfinished feel as well. Typos, buttons and DHTML demos that don't work, unfinished index (no match for "breadcrumbs"), and so on.

[Carrie_V]

Thank you for all of the information and quick responses! Hopefully this will be fixed soon. Until then I'll try the offline help. Thanks for reminding me of that option, JMB.

Akshay - Will you please post when the search is fixed on the server?

Thanks again, Carrie

[Peter Grainge]

As I said in another post this evening, Adobe have been made aware of the opinions of the help and in no uncertain terms. In fairness, they responded well so hopefully we will see an improvement.

[Peter Grainge]

These products are important to Adobe and I can only ask you to trust me that they are working on this area.

[MergeThis]

Have you seen this link?