You use the Adobe AIR layout in RoboHelp to generate Help as an Adobe AIR application. Pawan Nayar, Senior Documentation Manager – Adobe, shares the top reasons for using Adobe AIR layout:
- Dynamic content update: Use the power of AIR to push dynamic content-updates. If you make post-ship changes to the content, AIR-based Help can fetch the latest content back to users’ desktops. Users need not install a patch or search for upgrades.
- Dynamic content creation: Change your Help development cycle from DVD-tied (product-ship-date-tied) to a 24 by 7 by 52-cycle (ship updates as many times through the year as you wish). Have an yearly plan with core content coming in with product releases and more-value-added content delivered in quarters following the product release.
- Serve varied user-bases with minimal effort: Create content categories to publish the output as a package of user-centric Help systems (for example, a package of Help systems for different user roles, geographies, products, or platforms). End users view the output as an integrated package of Help systems and have the flexibility to select the Help content they want to access from a drop-down list.
- Help file becomes a branded application: Define the appearance for the Help application. Use custom theme, skin, template, copyright, icon, dimensions, etc. Such custom elements improve the branding of the product as well as the overall user experience of the Help-system.
- Improve search results: Increase search result scope by including content from identified URL patterns.
- Better collaboration: Improve Web 2.0-integration that allows feedback for your Help system. Further, you can set topics for rating, commenting, or moderation. You can also have a trust-based system or user-authentication.
- Improve security: Create a self-signed digital certificate. Establish that the software is genuine and free of malware. RoboHelp will not compile AIR-based Help without authenticating a valid digital certificate, thereby improving security.
- Decrease footprint in the DVD: When content is fetched from a hosted-site, the DVD space may be optimized.
- Internal operational flexibility: More last-minute customization is possible. Engineering teams may pick up more changes, assured of facts that documentation can be updated across the year.
- Get better product feedback: Since Help is commentable, you get feedback both on the content and the product. Commentability increases customer-focus and overall responsiveness.
For more information on generating AIR-based Help applications using RoboHelp, see this Help topic.
#1 by Todd Kopriva on December 24, 2010 - 4:58 pm
Aren’t nearly all of these benefits available by delivering the Help document as HTML files on the Web that can be viewed in the user’s chosen browser?
#2 by Ed Martino, PhD on December 24, 2010 - 7:19 pm
Excellent summary of AIRHelp advantages. I would also note that in my experience AIRHelp is a gr8 way to ramp up a help system at a departmental level. Later on after the info is well vetted and it the application is relatively stable, one can very easily migrate to browser based AirHelp or WebHelp if desired. These multiple output formats form the single source of RoboHelp makes the job of Techcomm teams much easier to perform.
#3 by Nandini Gupta on January 3, 2011 - 10:24 am
Todd and Ed, Thanks for your comments.
Todd, the post is primarily targeted at existing and prospective users of RoboHelp, who have the choice of publishing their content in the various layouts that RoboHelp provides. In that context, the comparison is between the Adobe AIR layout (output type Adobe AIR Application) and other layouts supported by RoboHelp. If the users publish their content in the Adobe AIR layout with the output type as Adobe AIR Application, the benefits listed in the post come with no additional effort or use of software. That’s not the case with other layouts.