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Subject: Re: [dita-help] First pass at AIR Help topic...


Hi Vivek...

The topics in the DITA Help SC Best Practices Guide describe how to use 
DITA-OT plugins to produce a particular type of Help output. It would be 
great (for the community and Adobe) if Adobe could put together an OT 
plugin that would build a RoboHelp project from DITA, then kick off a 
build to generate the selected type of output (possibly even AIR Help). 
This would provide people with a clean way to get from DITA to nicely 
formatted online Help without the need to get your hands dirty in 
messing with XSLT modifications. Sort of a merging of the open source 
and proprietary worlds.

The "LMI" AIR Help plugin that I'm developing allows people to generate 
AIR Help directly from DITA, but will require some amount of coding and 
customization. There's certainly room for multiple ways to get this type 
of output from DITA!

Cheers,

...scott



Vivek Jain wrote:
> RoboHelp will support publishing to Adobe AIR as help format in a big way.  Adobe AIR is clearly the most promising development in Help authoring and publishing in the last decade.  I envision an ability to publish DITA as Adobe AIR through RoboHelp.
>
> Adobe AIR runtime enables applications to deliver both the benefits of server connectivity and the compelling end user experience of a desktop application.  With a seamless offline- online experience, end-users of Adobe AIR applications can continue to work when they are temporarily offline.  RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR now enables you to publish in Adobe AIR format. Neither of the popular help output options - CHM or WebHelp or WebHelp on a Server provide the array of features as RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR does today.  That said, in my opinion, RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR is a beginning, beginning of a new revolution in help authoring.  Here is a list of what you get today
>
> * Auto Update - Adobe AIR applications that can update themselves when online connection is available and that can work perfectly when desktop is offline.  For example, Adobe AIR help file created with RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR will prompt the end-users when an update is available.  With a single click, the help file will update itself.
> * Get Web 2.0 features - Adobe AIR applications can store information locally - for example, when you add comments to Online Help, they are stored locally and can be viewed after you have closed the application.  End users can also comment on external pages and store the comments as part of help file.  Comments are still available when Online Help has been updated (provided file names don't change) or when you are offline.
> * Extensibility - Unlike HTML Help which depends on the CHM viewer, the functionality of the Adobe AIR is extensible and customizable.  For example, organizations can add branding information to Adobe AIR help file, including icons for help file, branding imagery on the top of the help file and so on.
> * Multiple tab - never before end user experience - Adobe AIR help file also allows you to open multiple tabs within the tri-pane enabling multiple help topics and threads to be navigated at the same time.
> * Integrated interface to everything your end users need - You can also add resource links to your help files - enabling a single access point for product pages, user forums, knowledge base, online help and external web pages.
> * Multiple templates to choose from - Organizations get to chose from several of the templates and can select a particular skin or theme for each of these templates.  With RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR, there are three templates come out of the box - Multi-Tab Accordion, Unipane and Classic Help.
> * End user preferences - RoboHelp Packager for Adobe AIR enables the help users to customize their help by selecting their preferences (something they can't do for a CHM or for WebHelp output - which is not hosted on a Server).
> * Cross Platform - Adobe AIR is cross-platform and cross-browser, supported on Windows, Mac and Linux (currently in pre-release).
>
> Needless to say, Adobe AIR has attracted a lot of interest among the help community and some of the experts believe that within two years, Adobe AIR will be the preferred help format for 40% of all help authors.
>
> If you have not tried it, you can download it now from http://www.adobe.com/products/robohelp/robohelp-packager-for-air
>
> Thanks and regards
> Vivek Jain
>
> Group Product Manager, Adobe Systems
> Adobe Technical Communication Suite, FrameMaker and  RoboHelp
> www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite/
> blog- http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Prentice [mailto:sp@leximation.com]
> Sent: Saturday, August 09, 2008 1:21 AM
> To: dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [dita-help] First pass at AIR Help topic...
>
> Hi...
>
> This is a very early first pass at an AIR Help topic. Since this plugin doesn't really exist at this point, I'm not able to nail down much ..
> but this will be a good way for me to direct the development of the plugin.
>
> Cheers,
>
> ...scott
>
>
>   


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