plugin robohelp

Hi,

Is there a plugin to use RoboHelp with TeamSite?

Thanks,
Sara

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Just as additional info: RoboHelp is a help authoring tool, from eHelp Corp. http://ehelp.com/

Does anybody use Teamsite and RoboHelp side-by-side? What's your experience? Are there any existing tools that help in this (integration)?

cheerio!

Migrateduser

Hi Sara,

I don't know of any RoboHELP specific plugin. What do you need to accomplish? RoboHELP is an authoring tool, just as Dreamweaver, GoLive, etc are. One would create files with an authoring tool, then manage file versions, approval processes, etc. through TeamSite. I'll give you a concrete example based on how we have used TeamSite and RoboHELP internally:
* An author creates a TeamSite workarea.
* The author creates a RoboHELP project and places it in his workarea.
* The author generates RoboHELP output files in his workarea.
* The author submits those output files (and optionally the RoboHELP project files) for approval.
* A peer reviews the output files and approves them.
* The output files are submitted to the Staging area
* The pubs manager, or project lead, creates an Edition
* Development is notified that the help files are ready and are located in the specified Edition.

If your interested in making modifications to the out-of-the-box help for ContentCenter Professional or Standard (the UIs for TeamSite 6.0), you don't have to use RoboHELP -- you can use any HTML authoring tool.

Does that help?

Frederik

Hi!

that's a useful description of your experience

I'm wondering on 2 things:

- Am I correct to assume that the way to make this work, is to use the "direct editing" (as opposed to "remote editing") setting in launchpad, which requires having the iwserver mapping set up on the client machine? I assume so, because I guess that access to multiple files will be needed by RoboHelp, and remote editing is mostly good for editing one file at a time. We prefer "remote editing" as it ensures that users don't bypass locking mechanisms, by direct access thru the samba mapping.

- I'm intrigued by the fact that you say: "optionally" submit the project files to STAGING. Since you need the project files for incrementally improving the output/help files, I'd figure that you'd want to have those versioned - even more so than the output files ?

Btw, how many files does RoboHelp generate on the "input" side, and how many on the output side? Is that a many-many relation, or a few-many relation?

Thanks for sharing !

Migrateduser

Hi Frederik,

I'll answer your second question first, as the answer to it bears relation to the first question:

It depends on what RoboHELP *output* format you choose. MS HTML Help is the Windows only compiled help format. There is only one output file (the .chm file). So that is a many - few relationship, and not so difficult to manage through remote edit (I'll explain later). If you choose WebHelp, the "platform-independent" help format, you have a many - many relationship, and that could be a bit tedious to manage through remote edit.

OK, now remote versus direct...

Let's say I have a RoboHELP project that already exists and is currently managed in TeamSite. Let's also assume that all I have to do is update existing pages, not add any new ones. I could easily manage this through *remote* edit. Here's how:
* I select all the RoboHELP project files and download them to my local system
* I also select all the RoboHELP output files and download them to my local system
* I open my RoboHELP project file (.mpj). Because I have downloaded all the associated support files in addition to this file, I have no problem opening and working with the RH project file.
* I update only existing pages, and do not add any new ones.
* I generate output.
* I upload all my RH project and output files.
* Submit. Done.

Now, let's say I have to add a couple new pages to this project. I would follow the steps above, but in the steps where I download project and output (if WebHelp format) I would first create dummy files in the workarea for the pages I plan to add, and include those dummy files in the set of files that I download. That way, TeamSite has a "record" of those file names and they will show up in the Launchpad (now Local Files Manager) screen.

Now let's say I need to create a brand new RH project. I think I would need file system access to my workarea. I would open RoboHELP and select Create New Project and specify my workarea as the location for my new project. That assumes that I have a mapped drive to the TS server and I can navigate to my workarea through the OS dialog that comes up when I click Browse in the RH UI to select a location for my project. Of course, I'd be working across the network, but there are no performance issues I know of when working over a LAN.

Once the new project and its output are on the TS server, other authors can work on it using the methods described above.

Does that help?

Also, I wonder, are you open to considering other help authoring tools? RoboHELP is a great tool. There are others, though, each with their own advantages.

Frederik

Hi!

thanks, that's excellent stuff to work from.

We are a bit in doubt though, whether we can expect our "casual contributors" (business authors) to handle all the required steps (downloading all project files, downloading all output files, creating dummy files, ...)

> Of course, I'd be working across the network, but there are no performance issues I know of when working over a LAN.

Note, it is not performance that worries me, but the fact that the mapped samba drive can be used to bypass the locking mechanism (AFAIK). Plus the drive mapping is an extra client-side configuration. So we try to avoid using that approach for business authors.

> are you open to considering other help authoring tools

I can't answer that, but I guess it would be "no". RoboHelp is in use for a project in our company (handled by another department and outside consultants). That project is expanding, and might in future be managed thru Teamsite. Our group's responsibility is to provide the Teamsite competence. Hence our forward-looking curiosity with respect to RoboHelp integration with Teamsite. Unfortunately, we don't have hands-on experience with RoboHelp, so it's a dark area to us. Your explanations have helped a lot. Thx again!

Migrateduser

Hi Frederik,

I just had another thought regarding your RoboHELP/TeamSite issues: would TeamSite Front-Office (TFO) offer a viable solution?

You mentioned that you are trying to aviod extra client-side configuration. I believe TFO requires a mapped drive, but it is a fairly easy product to set up and use.

Just a thought.

~Mike

Frederik

Hi Mike,

I'm not sure I get your drift?

I'm not familiar with TFO, it's not used at our site. But to my knowledge, it integrates with MS Office (in a variety of ways, beyond my imagination).

But how would that help in the RoboHelp <-> Teamsite integration? My ability to understand all possible alternatives available to us, is constrained by the fact that I've never handled or even seen a RoboHelp project (see my last post).

Again, client-side configuration is one thing... More worrying is the fact that having a mapped drive, could allow to break the locking mechanism (AFAIK).

Migrateduser

Hi,

Just wanted to jump in here and clarify a few things:

TFO does not require a mapped drive and in fact uses Web Services to do client/server communication. Therefore, it deals with things like locking, invoking workflows, etc in a way that the file system interface cannot.

TFO consists of both MSFT Office plugins and the TeamSite briefcase. The briefcase provides a Windows Explorer like interface for browsing TeamSite content. If a user checks out a file via the briefcase then it is automatically locked until it is checked back in.

My recommendation would be to have your users manage their help files in TeamSite and use the TFO briefcase to access them. They could then drag their help files into TeamSite, be automatically prompted to select a workflow, and be on their way.

Please feel free to contact me for more details.

Thanks,
David Yun

Product Manager, Client Tools
dyun@interwoven.com

Migrateduser

For the second time in the last three years, I've run into a group that has policy writers using Robohelp to create policies and procedures manauls that are supposed to be available on the intranet. The intranet team in both cases has been very displeased with robohelp for this purpose because they want intranet content to look consistent and be consistently navigable. It's also really hard to index robohelp, search it from the intranet and link to a specific place in a policy. Consequently, end users pretty much have to know where to go in order to find something (in which case they probably already know the info anyway).

One group chose the option of dumping the robohelp output into TeamSite so they could at least get the versioning. The other group chose to leave the Robohelp people out of TeamSite entirely.

I saw that Robohelp had an XML export option, so I considered exporting the material and using it as DCRs, but I never got any further than just thinking about it. If anyone else has had to deal with recalcitrant Robohelpers, I'd be interested in hearing what sort of solution you came up with.