Technical Communication

Adobe RoboHelp 7,Adobe Technical Communication Suite,Patch,Update Details,Issues Resolved,Security Update,Patch

We just released another update for Adobe RoboHelp 7. This update addresses some of the important issues that were reported on the Adobe RoboHelp forums and a few cross browser support issues. The update is being distributed using the Adobe Update Manager utility, which is shared by all Adobe products. So Adobe RoboHelp 7 users can utilize product's automatic update facility by selecting Help > Updates (Please note - you need to have admin rights to use this automatic update service). Once you update your installation, the version number will bump up from Adobe RoboHelp 7 to Adobe RoboHelp 7.0.2. However if you experience problems updating the Adobe RoboHelp installation from with in the application, you may choose to download the update from Adobe.COM (http://www.adobe.com/support/robohelp/downloads.html) and then apply the same.

Please refer to the Adobe RoboHelp 7.0.2 ReadMe for the list of issues that have been addressed in this update. I am including the same in my post for your reference.

- Akshay

Adobe ® RoboHelp® 7.0.2 ReadMe

Welcome to Adobe RoboHelp 7.0.2 readme. This document contains information about major changes which are included in this update.

List of major issues resolved in this update.

• Switching between Topics in Doc pad takes a lot of time.
• Encoding issues If a CHM file with a name different than the Project name.
• Structured cross-references and structured index markers losses their links in the generated output.
• Auto-size pop-up links in WebHelp/Pro SSL do not auto-size when viewed in Firefox.
• Special character such as apostrophe doesn’t get rendered properly in output generated by RHW.
• First topic map Ids in a RHW project does not work while testing it using CSH test tool.
• Map ID's do not work when generating WinHelp 4 in RoboHelp 7 for Word.
• Navigation and Top pane are absent in WebHelp Output if Add Mark of the Web is checked for Chinese and Korean language Code Pages
• Content pane disappears from the view in WebHelp output when a page is refreshed in Firefox 2.0.13.
• Topics in Flash Help output don’t get displayed properly in the correct frame when linked from the Table of Contents in Flash Help output.
• TOC/Glossary/Index fields are shown empty in the FlashHelpPro Layout published to RH Server 7if the project name contains German or French characters.
• Error Wizard doesn’t display any errors even when there are errors and warnings while generating WinHelp 2000 in RoboHelp for word.
• If number of Conditional Build Tags (CBT) is high, some of the CBT may not work to exclude certain topics.
• Hyperlink for FrameMaker File (.book) containing external cross references does not work.
• Any update done on a topic while working in HTML view of the topic doesn’t get reflected in topic.
• Indexes don’t get generated in XML output.
• Non Scrolling regions are not reflected in the WinHelp output for RHW project.
• Robo Screen Capture loses the editions made after pressing cancel in “Save As” dialogue.
• Resizing the TOC causes the contents of the toolbar to also appear in the minibar when viewing the output help in Firefox 2.0.13
• TOC items font size increases when WebHelp is viewed in Safari browser on Mac OS.
• Entire frame height is not used by TOC, index and other left panes when WebHelp is opened on UNIX.
• Style mapping is not exported if a cross-ref is mapped
• The Style applied on the Variable does not appear in the HTML generated through FM add/import.
• Two level indices are not shown properly in output.
• Import Word doesn't work in RH6 if RH6 and RH7 are installed simultaneously.
• On opening a word document from internet explorer the word addin association is lost with msword for RHW.
• TOC links for some topics in a WinHelp project may not work.
• Character style changes are applied to Para style if the Para and Char styles have same name.
• Custom format Cross reference may not work for some specific formats.
• Error is generated while linking TFS as source control provider with RoboHelp.
• Auto sync with the TOC is broken when WebHelp is viewed via Firefox.
• The Image generated for equations in FM files are lossy and distorted.
• Variables get lost in cross references if they are mapped to any RH cross ref blocks
• If RoboHelp project configuration files contain Japanese characters, error occurs on compiling and the context-sensitive help does not work.
• Invalid link is observed for index keyword to custom windows in Microsoft HTML Help project.
• Variables in FrameMaker file may get lost in cross references if they are mapped to any RoboHelp cross ref. blocks.
• Cross references may lose their links while importing a FrameMaker file in RoboHelp.

Copyright 2008 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Posted by Akshay Madan at 02:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Technical Communication: FrameMaker Archives,FrameMaker,DocTrain,Technical Communication,XML authoring,PDF,CMS,conref,MIF,cross-reference,WebDav,STC,Publishing,Patch,p273

We heard!           We worked!           We fixed!

Hello everyone

I am just back from the great ‘DocTrain West’ Conference held at Vancouver. I was really excited to discuss the interesting ideas and thoughts you shared with me in relation to both the short term and long term strategies. As I continued meeting you people, some of you told me about a few issues still faced by you in your workflows. We have been listening to you and we have fixed these problems through yet another patch 8.0.3.

FrameMaker 8.0.3 patch is live now and it is available through Adobe Update Manager (AUM). This patch (8.0p276) must be applied on top of 8.0.2 (8.0p273) only. You can check for updates through Help->Updates Menu in FrameMaker. Currently this update is available for English, French and German installations and we would shortly make it available for Japanese too.

With the help of these fixes, following workflows are now enabled/supported:

• DITA conrefs get resolved properly.
• Extended characters do not have a preceding space when using Arial Unicode MS font.
• Higher code point characters are not dropped on MIF open.
• FM catalogs sort properly.
• Quotation marks look as per the expectation in documents with Chinese, Japanese and Korean combination fonts.
• While using combined fonts, non-Asian characters present in the Asian font are now displayed using non-Asian fonts.
• Random letters do not disappear from text line present in oval within anchored Frame.
• Use of page range in Index does not randomly add question marks left and right in the generated index file.
• Characters do not become invisible on the screen on the next line while hyphenating words just before the accented chars.
• The NextPfgTag is correctly applied when pressing Enter at the beginning of the line.
• FM does not crash when a document containing hypertext (spread over two lines) to marker is saved.
• FM spellchecker uses user.dct entries
• History palette records typing command in text line.
• FM does not crash on saving a file after deleting split-ed text line.
• Pressing space button at the start of line does not place cursor at the end of line.
• Drag does not fail even if the target is a locked range.
• For a 3D imported by reference, on moving it from hidden to show all after applying conditional text, the referenced path is not lost.
• FM does not crash when a graphic file with object properties dialog open is overwritten at the system.
• Importing object to the second file when "Quick Access Bar" and "Formatting Bar" are open and then closing the file, does not crash FM.
• Converting a cross-reference to text does not crash FrameMaker when the format of the cross-reference has been edited.
• Performing a find change using the backwards option does not lead to a crash.
• Change All operation of a character does not crash FM.
• When an equation is applied in conditional text and hidden, it does not lead to a crash.
• The hyphenation of words in old Netherland language does not change character case.
• In Netherland language words do not get corrupted when un-hyphenation is done with the words having dieresis.
• Garbage characters are not shown in Tab stop list box if a legacy file containing higher ANSI characters in Align field of decimal tab is opened in FM 8.
• Japanese tab stops now work in FM 8.

This patch has fixes for some more issues not listed above.

Please install this patch on top of 8.0.2, retest your workflows and share your feedback with me.

Thanks

-Mahesh (mahesh@adobe.com)

Posted by Mahesh Kumar Gupta at 08:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe Technical Communication Suite,RoboHelp,FrameMaker,Lists,import,HAT,Help Authoring

Adobe RoboHelp 7 and Adobe Technical Communication Suite enable you to convert the FrameMaker paragraph styles with autonumber formats to HTML lists.  After import is complete, you can add or delete list items and the numbering of the list items will change accordingly.

a. Style Mapping - You can map the FrameMaker paragraph styles to new styles in RoboHelp and control the indentation and numbering format through the style definition.   Through style mapping, you can customize the display as bullet, (a), (i) or 1,2,3.

b. Complex and Nested lists - RoboHelp will convert complex list numbering to a single enumeration, for example, list item with number format 1.1.(a) will be enumerated as (a), preceding 1.1 will be lost.  Also, please note that RoboHelp considers the string of building blocks, for example, <n> <n> <a> etc to determine the levels in lists. 

• Named lists in FrameMaker - At present, RoboHelp does not change the level of lists based on names used in autonumber format in FrameMaker.  The solution is to use an empty building block in autonumber format to skip a level. For example, if you are using "A:<n+>." as the autonumber format for level 1 list and "a:<a+>" for level 2 list, change the autonumber format for the level2 list from"a:<a+>" to "a:< > <a+>".
• Using building blocks in Autonumber format -If you are using auto-number formats to display numbering like 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and have sub-lists 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, please make sure you are using autonumber format in level 1 paragraph style as "<n>.0" and not "<n><n=0>".  If you use the second definition in autonumber format, RoboHelp treats the paragraph style as part of level 2 list.

c. Ignore Autonumber Properties - You can also select to ignore auto-number properties for specific styles.  If you choose to ignore auto numbering, the paragraph style will not be mapped to a HTML list in RoboHelp.

If you choose not to "Convert AutoNumber to HTML list", all paragraph styles in FrameMaker will be converted to paragraphs and the numbering, bullets etc will become part of the paragraphs.  You can still map FrameMaker styles to RoboHelp styles as mentioned in (a) above.

Posted by Vivek Jain at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe RoboHelp,HAT,Technical Communication Suite,Performance,MDI,Fonts

As you are aware, we implemented Multiple Document Support (MDI) in Adobe RoboHelp HTML 7. However, this change resulted in a small performance bug on systems having large number of fonts installed on your system.

I request customers to remove the extra fonts that they were not using for enhancing problem and believe me I hated stating that. However, today I am happy, as we have fixed the problem and the fix is available through Tech Note - 40336 on Adobe.com. All you have to do is download a single dll and replace it in the Adobe RoboHelp HTML 7 installation.

- Akshay

Posted by Akshay Madan at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe FrameMaker,CMS Integration,WebDAV enhancements,Standard based integration,proprietary integration

WebDAV is a standard protocol and is supported by most Content Management Systems (CMS).  FrameMaker has built-in support for connecting to any WebDAV server and accessing files.  It enables browsing the repository, selecting files and checking them out from the Server. 

• When a file is managed by a WebDAV server, multiple users can download copies of the file, but only one user at a time can check out the file. The user who checks out the file can share his or her work with other users by updating the file on the server; however, other users can't make changes to the managed file until it is checked in. This check out/check in system allows multiple users to access the same file but prevents users from overwriting each other's work.
• Because WebDAV works over Web accessible networks, location doesn't matter. Team members can share files regardless of their proximity.

Your local machine has a directory structure that mirrors the WebDAV server structure, so when you check out files, the files are downloaded to your machine and placed in the mirrored folder.

FrameMaker 8 has extended the WebDAV support to allow authoring and editing of XML files located on the server.  In addition, FrameMaker 8 allows you to specify an HTTP path to import graphics into a document, either by copying or by reference. The HTTP path is preserved in the XML. 

WebDAV provides a standard way of integrating with diverse Content Management Systems today.  The other alternative is to build a custom integration with each of the CMS using the proprietary APIs by the CMS.  A custom integration is not only expensive to build and maintain, but it also locks down customers to a particular version of a particular CMS.  At the same time, WebDAV is a low level protocol (the least common denominator) and hence, to enable a seamless workflow, an authoring tool like FrameMaker needs to build logic to process the referenced files, related topics and so on.  Overall, in my opinion, the benefits of using a standard based approach outweigh the custom integration using proprietary APIs.

In future, I see two pronged approach towards enhancing CMS integration with FrameMaker.

• Enabling HTTP path for all referenced files – By enabling an http path for all referenced files in a FrameMaker document, book or DITAMap, FrameMaker will provide a better experience for authors working directly from the CMS.  For example, if you have a DITAMap open in FrameMaker and you double-click on the DITA Topic (which has an http path), FrameMaker will open the topic for you. 
• Enabling WebDAV based access to browse the repository and explicitly check-out and check-in files from the Server. When a file is checked-out, FrameMaker will also bring the referenced files in read-only mode to provide a better authoring experience. 

Posted by Vivek Jain at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)