Adobe AIR Application- A New Dimension to Help Layouts

Adobe,RoboHelp,Technical Communication

Adobe RoboHelp 8 comes with a new layout for Help output i.e. Adobe AIR layout. One of its types is Adobe AIR Application which is a cross platform Help system with an embedded browser that can be deployed on a desktop or can use the online content to be viewed in AIR Viewer. This is a single deliverable help system like a CHM file that requires prior installation of AIR runtime. It hosts a range of new features and significant number of advantages over other help systems.

Some worth a mention are:

It lays greater emphasis on **Security **as publisher needs to sign the help system digitally at the time of the generation.

End User Feedback is something that is always valued and required to develop an efficient and more useful help system. Now, this capability is integrated in the Air Help System which enables receiving of comments and incorporating them to augment the effectiveness of Help system. Users can provide their feedback on help systems by adding comments for the topics present and utilize various Commenting options. One such option is Syncing of Comments that allows multiple users to see each others’ comments that are always updated to most recent using a server.

For completing the review workflow so that feedback gets transformed into updated help system that can be uploaded automatically, **Auto Update **feature has been introduced where in user gets to know about the latest updated version for a help system and can update to newer version instantly. All the users who are online and have older version of a help system, receive notifications for the update.

Like other browsers, Adobe AIR Help application provides users with an option to keep their Favorite links at one place. Also, RSS Feeds, that has become so popular now days, can also be added to the Favorites section. It includes an inbuilt RSS reader which provides many user friendly options for organizing the feeds.

Air Help application comes with the flexibility of seamless interaction between Online and Offline mode. As soon as user goes offline due to a connection problem, help system gets directed to offline help.

Adobe AIR help application comes with a variety of flashy templates and skins. An author can decide among templates and color themes as per his flavor.

Nitika Mangla
RoboHelp QE Team