Adobe AIR Help

[honyk-2]

Hello Everyone,

recently I've heard about Adobe AIR Help, which can be generated using free
RoboHelp Packager [1] from WebHelp files.

In contrib folder of DocBook SVN [2] I've found promising stylesheet capable
to transform docbook files into WebHelp so I've tried it. According to
readme file I've copied all necessary files into final folder and into the
same folder I've pointed RoboHelp tool. Unfortunately, this app is
complaining that "The given WebHelp folder is invalid." Search in Google [3]
doesn't help so I am trying to ask you. My folder is located in "D:\files"
so no strange characters are used.

Does anybody have any experience with this tool? Is stylesheet in contrib
folder obsolete? Is there any example of WebHelp source files which are
processed correctly to be able find possible mistakes?

Thanks for your tips.

Jan

______________
[1] http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/robohelp-packager-for-air/
[2]
http://docbook.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docbook/trunk/contrib/xsl/applethe
lp/
[3] http://forums.adobe.com/thread/86913


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[David Cramer (Tech Pubs)]

The applethelp demo doesn't actually create webhelp. It creates a
web-based help out of a chm source files using some goo that comes with
Microsoft's HTML help workshop.  Note that it lacks a search tab, so I
doubt it's what you want (here's what it ends up looking like:
http://www.thingbag.net/docbook/applethelp-demo/). Also, the stylesheets
would probably need to be updated for the latest verison of the docbook
xsls.

If AIR help is your goal and Robohelp can produce it, one trick you
might try is to generate html help from the docbook xsls (those
generates a .hhp, .hhc, and .html files which you would normally compile
into a chm file using hhc.exe), then use File->Open in Robohelp to open
the DocBook-generated .hhp file. Now you have a normal Robohelp project
from which you can generate anything robohelp can generate. We used to
generate webhelp that way using an older version of robohelp. Don't know
if that trick still works though.

If you only need a very basic search feature, you could also try this
docbook customization demo:
http://www.thingbag.net/docbook/docbook-webhelp/

Good luck,
David

> -----Original Message-----
> From: honyk [mailto:j.tosovsky@...]
> Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:49 AM
> To: 'Docbook-Apps'
> Subject: [docbook-apps] Adobe AIR Help
>
> Hello Everyone,
>
> recently I've heard about Adobe AIR Help, which can be
> generated using free RoboHelp Packager [1] from WebHelp files.
>
> In contrib folder of DocBook SVN [2] I've found promising
> stylesheet capable to transform docbook files into WebHelp so
> I've tried it. According to readme file I've copied all
> necessary files into final folder and into the same folder
> I've pointed RoboHelp tool. Unfortunately, this app is
> complaining that "The given WebHelp folder is invalid."
> Search in Google [3] doesn't help so I am trying to ask you.
> My folder is located in "D:\files"
> so no strange characters are used.
>
> Does anybody have any experience with this tool? Is
> stylesheet in contrib folder obsolete? Is there any example
> of WebHelp source files which are processed correctly to be
> able find possible mistakes?
>
> Thanks for your tips.
>
> Jan
>
> ______________
> [1] http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/robohelp-packager-for-air/
> [2]
> http://docbook.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docbook/trunk/contri
> b/xsl/applethe
> lp/
> [3] http://forums.adobe.com/thread/86913
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail:
> docbook-apps-help@...
>
>

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[jrhooker]

Hi Jan,

In order to get AIR Help from my docbook files, I first convert them into DITA files and then I use the DITA Open Toolkit with Scott Prentice's AIR Help plugin (www.leximation.com).

I'm sure there's an easier way. There usually is. This is just the way I figured out.

Cheers,
Jeff.

-----Original Message-----
From: honyk [mailto:j.tosovsky@...]
Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 10:49 PM
To: 'Docbook-Apps'
Subject: [docbook-apps] Adobe AIR Help


Hello Everyone,

recently I've heard about Adobe AIR Help, which can be generated using free
RoboHelp Packager [1] from WebHelp files.

In contrib folder of DocBook SVN [2] I've found promising stylesheet capable
to transform docbook files into WebHelp so I've tried it. According to
readme file I've copied all necessary files into final folder and into the
same folder I've pointed RoboHelp tool. Unfortunately, this app is
complaining that "The given WebHelp folder is invalid." Search in Google [3]
doesn't help so I am trying to ask you. My folder is located in "D:\files"
so no strange characters are used.

Does anybody have any experience with this tool? Is stylesheet in contrib
folder obsolete? Is there any example of WebHelp source files which are
processed correctly to be able find possible mistakes?

Thanks for your tips.

Jan

______________
[1] http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/robohelp-packager-for-air/
[2]
http://docbook.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/docbook/trunk/contrib/xsl/applethe
lp/
[3] http://forums.adobe.com/thread/86913


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[honyk-2]

David,

> The applethelp demo doesn't actually create webhelp. It creates a
> web-based help

thanks for clarification, there is ambiguity in term WebHelp I see.

The main aim is to test promising multiplatform help system and its features
(default Help generated using Packager). I have no RoboHelp purchased but I
am sure it is possible to produce Air Help using mentioned RoboHelp Packager
directly from appropriate source files. If somebody has RoboHelp, I would be
grateful for exporting sample data (I have searched many sources, but with
no success yet) so I would be able to test them in Packager and consider if
these source data can be generated either by small or large customisation of
HTML Help stylesheets. In the first case I could try to help with
implementing, but to tell the truth, my xslt skills are quite limited.

Jan


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[honyk-2]

Hi Jeff,

> I first convert them into DITA files and then I use the DITA Open
> Toolkit with Scott Prentice's AIR Help plugin (www.leximation.com).

thanks for the info, I'll consider this approach, but at this point it seems
to me quite complicated. Direct tranformation would be great ;-)

Jan


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