Context Sensitive Help in Browser based AIR

Hi, I have looked through all the posts here and it doesn't help. I am using RH8, fully updated.
I am coming from a html web page, part of an AJAX applications output, and I need to get to the right page in AIR, which is the only Help I can find that is compatible all the way with all browsers.
RoboHelp_CSH. js contains the function ShowHelp, which I have successfully got to work for Web help and Flash Help, so I can do MapIDs. It does not seem to work with AIR.
It says in the Adobe Support http://help.adobe.com/en_US/RoboHelp/8.0/RoboHTML/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d11aff59c571-7f4 3.html that I need a function called RH_AIR_ShowHelp, but I can't find that on my hard disk or on the web, nor any instructions on how to use it.
What am I doing wrong, or where does it say how do I get this functionality to work?
Thanks for your time
Paul

Whilst not completely checked, there are some new pages about AIR help on my site. Maybe they will help.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Similar Messages

How to create context sensitive help and call the role based help from my Java Project?

Hello All,
I am new to Robo Help. I have created a Robo help for my Java Web Applicaion. My application is role base i.e some user's will not see some of the pages of the application. So I want to hide those pages in Robo help as well. I tried creating multiple TOC for different Roles.
My Question is
How to call robo Help from my application?(I will be calling using java script. If it is with RoboHelp_CSH.js where can I get that and How to implement it in my project)
How to implement role based help?
Thanks,
Siva.

I answered that. My point in asking whether it matters was that if it does, then you cannot use content categories and point different users to different categories and not allow them to see the others.
The alternative, as I said, would be to produce different outputs for each role.
As it does matter, then using webhelp you will have to use your RoboHelp project to produce a number of outputs, one for each category. Your app would install each webhelp into different folders and when your app determines the user role, you will link to the appropriate help.
There is another thread running where it has been explained by Willam van Weelden that you can achieve what you want using browser based AIR help. If that form of help can be considered, then the thread is at http://forums.adobe.com/message/4914753?tstart=0#4914753
Browser based AIR help must be run from a web server. It cannot be installed locally.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Webhelp v browser-based AIR Help

Hi, I 'm going to be writing help for a web-based application for the first time and am trialing Robohelp 9. Can anyone tell me the difference between the published files for Webhelp and browser-based AIR help? Would there be any technical difference in deploying them to a web server? My apologies if this has been answered elsewhere - I couldn't find a reference to it.
Also (probably a separate question), is there any way to incorporate commenting with either output type? I know this is not supported in the SSLs, but is there a way around it using script? It seems strange that only the 'offline' AIR help includes online commenting. And Adobe's own help pages include it (though they don't seem to use Robohelp!).
Many thanks in anticipation.

Hi Susie et all,
Just spotted this thread and am in the exact same position as you :-)
Really like the browser-based Air help look and trying to keep up with the limitiations and any issues.
We cannot use classic Air Help as the help system supports a web-based product and there is no way that the client will allow a 'special' install for a help system.The trouble starts when you start comparing Air Help, browser-based webhelp and browser-based Air help. In Air Help you are teased with the Favourites tab, the comments pod but they are not available for browser-based Air. The search also works differently in Air formats (results in topic window), something I only became aware of a few days ago. You cannot add custom buttons to tool bar in BB Air something I've found very userful in web help. We have also had a few formatting issues and use a different .css for webhelp and airhelp (mainly to get styles to match the different skins).
There is no doubt that the browser-based Air output looks slick and as John said the skin can be modified to give a corporate feel. But your visitors will need flash player to view content in the left hand pane - its flash that gives it the slick look and feel. I'm trying to run some test this week to find out what will happened without flash player AND to check how the help appears in the various browsers.
I'm curious, have you had any specific issues with running browser-based help on a webserver? We are still awaiting feedback from developers, but so far they have been unable to get browser-based help running on server - just a blank page with grey background. I'm reassured by Peter's comments so hoping it is some security setting that they can deal with. The most sensible approach now is to try and get webehlp running in same environment.
I will definitely post feedback and will be following this thread closely now.
Kind Regards
Craig

Browser based AIR Help and PDF Files

Hi everyone,
I am so glad to have forum like this, hoping that sharing your experiences will help a little bit further.
Just recently I have tried to generate an browser based AIR Help in combination with merged projects. By the way, Peter Grainge's tutorial was very helpful here, thanks Peter!
My project also contained a single PDF file in a baggage container. After I had published my file, I had noticed that it was not possible to open the PDF in any way.
So I tried the same using the Adobe AIR Help Application and there the PDF worked. Now I was wondering whether I did something wrong or do I need to be aware of something.
Personally I don't mind using the Adobe AIR Help Application, the only disadvantage I had discovered beside the local installation, is the the document spacing seemed to be a little odd. Actually there was no space between the border and the content. With any other single source output there is, including the browser based AIR help.
I didn't find any similar problems on this forum, but maybe any of you has a little hint for me.
Thanks and greetings from Germany,
Christian

PDF should work from browser based AIR Help. Try a different file.
See the AIR topics on my site about the margins. In short, you create a copy of your CSS and just change the body tag margins in Notepad. Use the ordinary CSS when you are working or creating other outputs, use myproject_AIR.css when you generate the help.
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips
@petergrainge

Browser Based AIR Help not displaying in browser

Hi All!
Publishing with RoboHelp 8...
WebHelp generates and publishes properly to the server. Viewable, working, all good.
Browser Based AIR Help previews, generates, publishes, but won't display via IE or Safari. All that I get is a blank page instead of index.htm
Side Note/Side Issue: Project contains links to Baggage File PDF's. The links in the WebHelp version works properly. The BB AIRHelp only displays a blank page
Any thoughts?

LOL, it was never my intent to berate you. Only to try and point out that things like this require some thinking through.
As for the "sexist overtones", those totally aren't intentional either. I facilitate RoboHelp and Captivate classes for my living. I find that as humans, we all have food in common. As a result, it is often helpful to use an analogy to better understand what is going on with things we cannot see physically, such as RoboHelp generating and publishing files.
If you look through these forums at all, you will see that I use the analogy of a Single Source Layout as being just like a recipe. The Single Source Layout Pod being just like a recipe box. And I'm always calling the SSL the "SSL Recipe". Go ahead and search. You'll be surprised.
So it had nothing to do with this post. Only that it's my preferred way of trying to help make sense of things that aren't exactly tangible.
Sorry if I offended you in any way. I certainly didn't mean to!
Cheers... Rick
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Need help with a Context Sensitive Help project

Hey everyone,
I'm the RoboHelp administrator around here - I've done some
RoboHelp projects and created the procedures, stylesheets and
templates for our company's WebHelp, WinHelp 2000, and JavaHelp
projects, but now I'm sort of the consultant for the content
authoring team that creates the help systems. I think I need to
call in some help from the forum about a project I'm consulting on.
Here's the situation: A project team here thinks they want
field-level help to support a web-based application. I've told them
"That's fine, it's possible, just don't demand that the help author
create topics for EVERY field, even the obvious ones like "Name",
"Address", "Zip", etc, since there is very, very little value in
doing that." We already have a very old help system that is being
CONVERTED to WinHelp 2000 (from a "mocked-up" version of WinHelp)
that did just that - every field in every screen was a separate
topic, even if it wasn't useful. Every topic was essentially "This
information goes in this field". As a result, we abandoned creating
an Index, since we had about 27 entries for "Name", 13 for
"Address1", 15 for "Address2", etc.
Well, I just heard back yesterday that they totally ignored
my suggestion and they want to go ahead with the "all help for all
fields" idea. I still think I have a chance of convincing them to
choose context-sensitive topics wisely, if it can present my case
clearly and be persuasive. I just found John Daigle's article about
context sensitive help (
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/robohelp/articles/context_help.html)
and I'm looking at it now (very well done, by the way - thanks
John!). It looks like, from first glance, that it might convince
that project team that "Whoa, this context-sensitive thing is more
than we bargained for", which is what I want them to think, since
they have very limited resources and a help author that is VERY new
to RoboHelp and WebHelp. I personally have never built a
context-sensitive help project with different windows, but I have
built several projects using conditional builds.
What does everyone think of this approach?
Thanks,
Jim

Here's a nice, convincing argument that I just thought of -
the only thing wrong with it is that I don't know if it's true or
not.
Does the end user's browser cache the .htm files for the help
topics that are grabbed from the server? If so, consolidating the
field definitions lessens the server traffic.
(Always get the server guys on your side - everywhere I've
worked, they wield a big stick!)
Also, I'm a big believer in functional help topics, but I
have compromised for some clients and included one-per-screen
conditional topics with the field labels. John, I wish I had known
about the map numbering trick back then - I would have loved to
give them F1 help.
Elisa

Is there a way to open context-sensitive help in a new window with RH10?

I'm linking my context sensitive help using the RoboHelp_CSH.js file to my web application.
The correct topic opens when I click the help link, but it opens in a pop-up window. This causes problems in Firefox and Chrome (which block pop-ups by default).
Is there anyway to force the context-sensitive help topics to open in a new window?
I've tried adding
<p><A HREF="javascript:RH_ShowHelp(0,'http:/myurl/index.htm', HH_HELP_CONTEXT, 100)" target="_blank">Help</A>
which opens an empty tab in Firefox with no content in it. And it doesn't work in Chrome either.
Has anyone else run into this? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Colleen

Hi and welcome to the forums.
Using the RoboHelp API, that is quite a bother. (Read: major pain)
Fortunately, there is a simple solution:
<a href="http://myurl/index.htm#<id=4>>newwnd=false" target="blank">Help<a/>
This link does exactly the same, only opens the help in a new browser window.
You may also be interested in my custom WebHelp API: http://www.wvanweelden.eu/blog/2012/08/03/custom-webhelp-apis
Greet,
Willam

.CHM Context Sensitive Help - Any Best Practice advice?

Hi,
Using RH9 and generating .CHM as the output.
I need to create context sensitive help that will work at screen level only. The project has around 600 help topics. I know i can autogenerate the MAP file using RH and pass this to development for them to plumb into the system which seems the quickest way. I know I could also manually map the 200 or so topics that refer to each screen in the application but that will take much longer (but will reduce the size of map file).
This is for a version of the help that has already changed i.e, I am now working on another version of the help so there are changes including new topics being added, some removed or renamed etc.
Is it ok to autogenerate on the first build, then import this map file into new updated project?. Any pitfalls I should be aware of before starting or not?
Generally what is others experience?
PDF Boy.

Hi, glad I could help.
There are certain javascript calls which will close the window automatically when focus is shifted somewhere else, but there are gotchas. You will notice Yahoo and some airline sites that have popup calendars face the same problem.
Not all browsers (or older versions) observe those newer calls dependably. So we are stuck with asking the user to close them. If I understand what you want, you could enable the Show button. This would show the Navigation pane and the rest of the topics so your user could proceed deeper. Still, they will have to close the window! Alternatively you could manually put link "arrows" in the top right of the topic and let them navigate to whatever topic you choose. But, that's time consuming and even this trick is not accessed by F1, so I'm reaching here .
What we really need is a browse sequence button that can be placed in the topic itself rather than those dinky arrows in the Navigation pane. I have requested this feature and maybe you could add your request here https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&product=38
Thanks!
John Daigle
www.showmethedemo.com

How to get context sensitive help in JSP Pages

Is it possible to display context sensitive help in JSP Pages when I press the tab key on the keyboard base on the key focus. I don�t want to use any applet or Swing components, because it�s a web page viewed on the browser
Thanks

Java code inside a JSP is interpreted on the server and the HTML produced by the server it is shown in the client browser. The JSP code can incorporate calls to the JavaHelp API if it is available to the server. Those calls can be used on the server side to map parts of the JSP to contents of a help set (HTML pages).
Given that, you can provide context sensitive help, but when it comes to view help information, you either can show HTML only (without TOC, index, etc.) or you'd need an applet.
Ulrich

How can I reference an external help file from context sensitive help at the control level?

My goal is to provide context sensitive help for each control displayed on the front panel using a help file created externally. I know that at the VI level I can specify a Help Path; I want the same behaviour for each control inside a VI. I also know about creating a custom control and specifying the Help Path in there, but it doesn't help in this situation, for I have hundreds of controls in my application and I cannot go back and replace each one with a unique .ctl. If I could override each instance of the custom control with unique path data that would do the trick, but that's not how it works.
Is there a way to add the Help Path information to regualr controls?
-euge
ne

This functionality is not yet built into LabVIEW.
About all you can do is cut and paste the help for each control into the description for the control. It is tedius but a finite task.

Muddled context sensitive help ids

Hi All
I've done some quite major updates to a help project,
including the creation of new context sensitive help Map Ids.
When I generate the help I get two files, cshdat_webhelp.htm
and cshdat_robohelp.htm. The cshdat_webhelp.htm contains the
correct map ids, however cshdat_robohelp.htm is still picking up
old IDs and some that look like random IDs, and this appears to be
the file that is called from the top level file
(projectname_rhc.htm) that the application calls. We can't get the
app to work with the projectname_csh.htm, so we need to use the
projectname_rhc.htm and cshdat_robohelp.htm files.
The only map file used in the project is the BSSCDefault.h
file, which only contains the correct IDs. I can't understand where
it is picking up the old/incorrect map IDs from. Can anyone please
help??
Thanks in advance,
Emma.

In case this is of use to anyone else, I found that there was
a .ppf file (whatever that is) in the directory, which was somehow
messing with the cshdat_robohelp.htm file. I deleted this, and hey
presto, problem solved.
Emma.

Cannot get simple merged HTML Help project going with context sensitive help

I have built a very simple project in RH9 from scratch, consisting of a main project and a sub-project now after I have modified our large project in changing every hyphens from file and directory names over a couple of days now only to see that context help still doesn't work.
The map IDs are not visible in the main project. To test it in the example, invoke the CSH-Test (context sensitive help test) from the Toolbox, enter !SSL!\Microsoft_HTML_Help\main.chm in the Offline field and a number 57 in the ID field. In our large project I'm getting nothing (no window pops up). In this example I'm getting this mystical error box, saying HH_HELP_CONTEXT called without a [MAP] section.
Christoph

Hi William,
thanks having a look at my problem. I read in another thread today a description which comes close to the problem I'm facing.
Maybe I formed the mini sample not exactly as our problem is situated. (thus the doubled map ids you were claiming).
I will try to explain again: we have a couple of CHMs in separate single help projects. These go into their own TOCs, Index Glossar etc. like in sub1->Einzel. For the merged project we produce a chm that goes into the directory of the master (main) project, like in sub1->Primäres Layout.
Each Topic in the sub project (e.g. sub1->Erstes Thema) has a symbolic link address (e.g. "Linkadresse=det_org_angaben), which is mapped to the MAP ID via the .h file.
This all used to work that way in RH5.
Now it seems that this information between the map ID and the symbolic Linkaddress gets lost with the merge process.
I am not using the same ID (57) twice in my example. The MAP ID in the main project comes from the sub1 project (see the yellow locked MAP ID).
The simplest test is using the CSH-Test in the Toolbox giving the main.chm as the Helpfile to test and enter the 57 as a MAP ID.
The idea behind is to use one CHM later to have to open in the application. The other CHMs of the subprojects only need to be present in the application directory. Then you invoke HtmlHelp(with the MAPID),like I posted in this thread.
The method you are suggesting in mapping the ID to the topic in the main project will not work since the topic is in the CHM of the sub project.
I modified the sample project once again (somehow the baggage files were not showing) to come closer to the constellation we are using in the large project, though I'm getting the "HH_HELP_CONTEXT called without a [MAP] section" error (which does not occur in our large project).
Christoph

Context-sensitive help breaking in RoboHelp 8

Peter - you're a lifesaver and I hope you're out there today . . . or somebody's out there who can help . . .
I shouldn't have said that in my last post about something being the "wackiest" thing I'd ever seen in RoboHelp. Now we have a new problem that's much more serious.
We have an aforementioned (in previous post) enormous RoboHelp 5 project, converted to RoboHelp 8 after much anguish, replacing hundreds of WYSIWYG graphics with true code etc. Map IDs were *not* touched.
Now the context-sensitive help for our VB app is not working, even though the map IDs are still in place on both ends (dev and docs) and all the relevant .hh files were included in my compile. Some topics (within the same help file) appear when called from the app, some don't.
A developer had a theory that in one case the topic ID was assigned (on their end) during design time, the other during run time. He's testing it now.
If it doesn't work, I have no idea where to begin. Is anyone aware of any changes in RoboHelp 8 that would affect the way the .hlp links to VB?
Thank you! - Sandy

Hi all,
I wanted to thank everyone who responded and post a follow-up to this, as well as a caution.
I felt like the world's biggest *** when I found this out, but it turns out that in my .doc files for this particular .hlp file (our project includes multiple .hlps) "Automatically Generate Map IDs" was turned on, and of course it should not have been. So the problem was on my end, not the software developers' end.
However - part of the reason it took me so long to figure this out is that I know I never turned that setting on. The other writer on this project has been here longer than I have and never would have turned it on. And it's not like that command is easy to stumble upon and set off accidentally (For those of you who don't know, it's under File>>Project Settings in RoboHelp Explorer). I have to think that RoboHelp defaulted those settings in somehow, maybe during our conversion from 5 to 8.
(Unless someone knows a way that you *can* just stumble on this setting and trigger it accidentally, maybe by inserting some random character in your .hpj . . . if anyone does, I would love to know about it.)
So, especially if you just changed versions of RoboHelp, I would encourage you to be proactive and, if you don't want "Automatically Generate Map IDs" turned on, double-check and make sure nothing is selected for Automatic Map ID Generation on the "Map Files" tab of the Project Settings dialog. After what happened to me this last time around, I'm probably going to check it every time I compile. - why not add another neurosis to the list?
Thanks again - Sandy

Context-Sensitive Help Issues

I have problem where context-sensitive help markers disappear
from my .h files.
I started with a .h file from my old WebWorks project. After
a little reformatting, I was able to get the CSH Map IDs to load
and map properly to my RH topics (I had to do the mapping manually
even though the topic names were the same) . I was also able to add
several new Map IDs to facilitate help in the latest version of our
product. The final help was tested and worked properly.
Now that it's time to update the help for another new release
of our product, I am noticing that many, many of the Map IDs that
were in my project before have now disappeared. Anybody have any
idea what is happening here?
I'm sick of struggling to get RH to play nice with these .h
files. Manually remapping the Map IDs to the topics each time we
release a new project is terribly dull work and time consuming.
Is there any way to add the Map ID numbers to the CSH markers
in FM so that RH can automatically map the IDs to the topics? I
want to use the Map IDs we already have established with our
development team; I don't want RH's automapping which starts at one
and advances incrementally through all of your topics).

I think you dint check the option "Project Map File" from drop down list in the dialog box for editing Map ids. For this, in the main menu point to "Edit" tab, select "Map Id's". Edit Map Ids dialog box appears. Choose the option for Map File as "Project Map File" from the drop down list.

Does Robohelp HTML V 7.02.001 support Arabic language to generate context sensitive help

Kindly let us know URGENTLY if RoboHelp 7.02.001 supports Arabic language to generate context sensitive help in Arabic. If RoboHelp does not support, let us know if there is any other workaround solution or third party integration tool that may help us to generate Arabic help files.

The supported languages are listed in the help file, they do not include right to left languages.
There are no tools that I know of but last week there was a post that might interest you.
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2242235#2242235
See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Context Sensitive Help in Browser based AIR

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