Technical Communication

Patch,RH,Adobe,RoboHelp

Recently, there have been a number of queries regarding some bugs that have already been fixed by the RoboHelp team and delivered to our customers as patches on top of Adobe RoboHelp 6. In total we have released three patches for fixing bugs that went unnoticed in Adobe RoboHelp 6 and one Security patch that applies to Adobe RoboHelp 6 as well as older versions including X5.

The following are the issues that have been fixed in the patches:

1. Error, "Internal error encountered, Failed to generate WebHelp." when you generate a merged project.
   Issue:
   When you try to generate a merged project from Adobe RoboHelp 6, you receive these error messages:
   "Internal error encountered, Failed to generate WebHelp."
   and
   "Warning: [path to file] cannot be copied to [path to output]. reason: source does not exist."
   Reason:
   This can occur if you have a relative link in your project that points to a location that is not contained within your project.
   Solution:
   Please visit the following link to get a dll and follow the procedure described therein to patch Adobe RoboHelp 6 installation.
   http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401652
2. Generic Windows crash error message when you export Microsoft HTML Help from Adobe RoboHelp 6.Issue:
   When attempting to export Microsoft HTML Help from Adobe RoboHelp 6, you get one of the following error messages:
   "RoboHelp HTML Application has encountered a problem and needs to close."
   or
   "An unhandled win32 exception occurred in RoboHTML.exe [3768]."
   Reason:
   This can occur if you have conditional build tags and tables that contain spans in the same project.
   Solution:
   Please visit the following link to get a dll and follow the procedure described therein to patch Adobe RoboHelp 6 installation.
   http://www.adobe.com/go/kb401651
3. Title changes to match file name when importing topics into RoboHelp 6.
   Issue:
   When you import a HTML file into RoboHelp, it automatically changes the HTML title tag to match the file name.
   Solution:
   Please visit the following link to get a dll and follow the procedure described therein to patch Adobe RoboHelp 6 installation.
   http://www.adobe.com/go/kb402006

Apart from these bug fixes, there is a security update that we recommed every RoboHelp user should apply. It is regarding a hole in one of the JavaScripts. A specially crafted URL could be used to create a cross-site scripting attack against files generated by RoboHelp 6, RoboHelp X5 or RoboHelp Server 6. Please visit the Security Bulletin to know more about this and how to patch your RoboHelp installation.

Akshay Madan

Posted by Akshay Madan at 02:24 PM | Permalink

FrameMaker,FrameMaker 8

I feel happy to inform you that FrameMaker 8 has been announced and is expected to ship worldwide by the end of July 2007. (Press Release, FrameMaker 8)

FrameMaker 8 has been designed to help its users take advantage of emerging technologies in technical communication and to meet the new challenges thrown up by a fast globalizing world. I would like to invite you to participate in the eSeminars listed below to see whats new in FrameMaker 8. (click here to register)

You would also be able to download and test a fully functional 30 day trial version of FrameMaker 8 by the end of July 2007. The FrameMaker product team would be happy to receive your feedback on the release.

Thank you

Introducing Adobe FrameMaker 8 : Now with Flash, 3D, DITA and Unicode support!
Thursday, July 26th, 2007 10:00 AM PDT (click here to register)
Learn about the much anticipated new release of Adobe FrameMaker 8 that will revolutionize how content is authored and consumed. Packed with features for everyone like: track text changes and other review workflow improvements, more XML single-sourcing features, DITA, support for live 3D models and much more.

FrameMaker Deep Dive: DITA Topic-based authoring and single sourcing
Thursday, August 9th, 2007 10:00 AM PDT (click here to register)
Take an in depth look into new support for DITA Topic-based authoring, advanced single sourcing features and improvements to the review and collaboration workflow (e.g. track text edits).

Benefits of FrameMaker for structured and unstructured documents
Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 10:00 AM PDT (click here to register)
Learn about Adobe FrameMaker’s capabilities to create structured and unstructured content. Should you migrate to structure and what to consider if you do? How do you structure your content? Explanation of some terms used in structured application development (e.g. EDD, XSLT).

Posted by at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe,RoboHelp Server,Reports,Configure RHS

In this post, I would be discussing a question that has been asked a number of times in the recent conferences. A number of customers I meet, are interested in knowing if it is possible to configure Adobe RoboHelp Server to show separate Usability Reports (Most Frequently Asked Questions, Unanswered Questions etc) for multiple Help Systems hosted on a single RoboHelp Server. The answer is YES. However, to enable the same you need to do the following three things:

1. Add as many Web sites to the IIS as the number of Help Systems that you want to host.
2. Configure Adobe RoboHelp Server for those many number of Web Sites using the Configuration Manager
3. Publish each Help system to a separate Web Site

Once you do all these three steps, you will be all set to get separate reports for each of the hosted Help Systems / Knowledge Bases on a single Adobe RoboHelp Server.

Let us now discuss each of these three steps in detail.

Assumption: You already have a working system with Adobe RoboHelp HTML 6 and Adobe RoboHelp Server 6. Also you have a Help system hosted on the default Web site of IIS and are able to see reports for that particular Help System using Adobe RoboHelp Server 6 Configuration Manager.

Now, I shall describe how to host another Help system on the same Adobe RoboHelp Server 6 and still get separate usability reports.

Step1: To set up a new Web site in IIS (the following steps are applicable to Microsoft Windows 2003 Server with IIS 6.0)

To create a new Web site in IIS, follow these steps:

1. Log on to the Web server computer as an administrator.
2. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
3. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Internet Services Manager.
4. Click Action, point to New, and then click Web Site.
5. After the Web Site Creation Wizard starts, click Next.
6. Type a description for the Web site.
   Note: This description is used internally to identify the Web site in Internet Services Manager only.
7. Select the IP address to use for the site.
   Note: If you select All (unassigned), the Web site is accessible on all interfaces and all configured IP addresses.
8. Type the TCP port number to publish the site on.
9. Type the Host Header name (the real name that is used to access this site).
10. Click Next.
11. Either type the path to the folder that is holding the Web site documents or click Browse to select the folder, and then click Next.
12. Select the access permissions for the Web site, and then click Next.
13. Click Finish.

Step2: To configure Adobe RoboHelp Server for the newly added Web site.

To configure Adobe RoboHelp Server, follow these steps:

1. Launch Configuration Manager. There should be a shortcut on the desktop if you have installed Adobe RoboHelp Server with default settings.
2. Click File, and then click New Server. Configuration Wizard will open up. Click Next.
   Note: It will list all the available websites for which the Adobe RoboHelp Server has not been configured
3. Choose the new Web site (added in Step1) and then click Next.
4. Click Next one more time.
   Note: In this step, the Wizard will configure database.
5. Once the server has competed configuring the database, click Next and then Finish.
   Note: The wizard will end and you will see that the Adobe RoboHelp Server is now configured for the newly added Web site.
6. Click View Project to check for the Congratulation message.

Adobe RoboHelp Server is now configured for two Web sites (the Default Web site and the newly added Web site). Subsequent launches of Configuration Wizard will ask for a Web site at the time of initialization.

Step3: To publish help to the newly added Web site.

To publish help to the newly added Web site, follow these steps:

1. Open the Source of the Help System that you want to publish on the newly created Web site in Step 1 in Adobe RoboHelp for HTML.
2. Now to publish this Help system on the Adobe RoboHelp Server, In the Project tab, expand the Single Source Layouts folder, Double-click WebHelp Pro.
3. The WebHelp Pro Publish wizard will open up, then Click Next.
4. Under the Server group, click New.
5. Fill in the New Destination dialog.
   Note: Make sure that you specify the port along with the Server Name. Since you are publishing to the same Server, port must be specified. The Port should the same as the one that has been specified while adding the new Web site in Step1. For example – Server Name – servername:81, if 81 was the port.
6. Click OK to commit the input in the New Destination dialog.
7. Click Finish on the main WebHelp Pro Publish wizard.

You have now completed all the required steps for setting up the Adobe RoboHelp Server for managing and generating separate reports for two Help Systems that have been hosted on a single Server, but on to two different Web sites. You can use the Configuration Manager to view reports of each of the hosted Help System.

Posted by Akshay Madan at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)