What’s new in Adobe AIR Help 2.0 [VIDEO]

We introduced ‘Adobe AIR Help’ in RoboHelp 8, a platform and browser independent output format that powers the next generation of documentation. The response has been over-whelming. Web 2.0 features to engage with the product community, appealing layouts and the ability to keep the content up-to-date, accurate and consistent made more and more technical communicators adopt it in no time. We are pleased to introduce AIR Help 2.0 in RoboHelp 9 to deliver on the key asks from our customers.

Use “push” to keep content updated with Adobe AIR Help 2.0
Content cannot wait, and automatic update of offline and online content is important. Content changes rapidly and must be updated at the speed of light. Adobe AIR Help 2.0 uniquely makes this possible with automatic updates and a contemporary, brand-savvy look and feel.

Commenting makes Help a two-way street
In addition to the author’s own authoritative content, commenting can play a role in fostering valuable community-generated content as a part of user assistance. This helps the author provide continuous content improvement based upon user feedback.

With Adobe AIR Help, there are several commenting options. You can:

  1. Enable commenting by your end users for their own use in annotating their topics or sharing with colleagues.
  2. Use commenting among your authoring team and SMEs for consolidating comments.
  3. Allow users to share comments with other users.
  4. Assist SME reviews in your own network.
  5. Share comments among users in a shared review.

AIR Help 2.0 enables you to now receive comments from end-users who either share the same corporate network or have access to internet. However in some cases, organizations have delayed deployment of commenting over concerns about how to manage inappropriate comments. Comment Moderation provides a solution.

Comment Moderation is key to managing comments
You can enable Moderation so that comments are first reviewed by the Moderator and Accepted or Rejected before publishing to the community at large. As a moderator, you also have the option to publish the comments as they come in and remove the inappropriate ones.

View video in a new browser window.

Let the user get the right topic at the right time with Context Sensitive AIR Help 2.0
Context Sensitive Help (CSH) has long been a bit of a mystery to many help authors. The idea is that an end-user clicks on a help icon or F1 and a topic appears at the right place with the specific information needed to complete a task. Fortunately with Adobe RoboHelp 9 the mystery is solved. You will find very good documentation of how it is done in the Salesbuilder-Help Sample project, included with RoboHelp. In fact, you will find that it documents how to create Adobe AIR Help 2.0 to support an AIR application called Salesbuilder. Open the project and then open the All_about_the_AIR_Help folder and open the topic, Context Sensitive Help to read all about it.

AIR Help Skin Editor lets you design your own look and feel
Content must be consistent with design standards and branding themes. Customized branding with logos and color schemes is much more versatile with the new AIR Help Skin Editor. Adobe RoboHelp 9 now has an AIR Help Skin Editor that allows you to control the colors and icons used in AIR Help skins.

There are many other new capabilities in AIR Help 2.0 such as Topic Rating etc., but I will cover them in another blog post. Please let me know your thoughts on AIR Help 2.0 in RoboHelp 9 by adding a comment to this post (yeah, let moderation-enabled commenting begin!). If you like it, please consider sharing this post with your Twitter followers by clicking the Tweet button above.

Ankur Jain
Product Manager – Technical Communication Suite | RoboHelp
Follow me on Twitter: @ankurjain8