Publish content from your hard drive to the server

Each organization has a different IT or web administration procedure, but here are some common scenarios.

Author publishes directly to the "live" RoboHelp server

• Select WebHelp Pro (or FlashHelp Pro) as a single-source layout to bring up the publishing wizard.
• Select the named default Window from the pop-up list.
• Select a skin, and then click Next.
• Click New to set up a connection to the RoboHelp server. This will require a domain name or IP address, as well as a username and password, which can be obtained from your network administrator.
• Click Finish to generate the project. Click the Publish button to send it directly to the server.

Author publishes to a staging or development server

Instead of the live server, the IT department may ask that you publish to a staging or development server. The setup is the same, however.

Author publishes manually to the RoboHelp server

Some authors do not have direct access to the RoboHelp server. You can make an arrangement with the network administrators to place your output on the server for you. Typically they will designate a folder on a share drive to place the output (not the source material!) Locate the WebHelp Pro output folder. It's usually along a path similar to this: C:\Adobe_RoboHelp_Projects\XYZ_Project\!SSL!\WebHelp_Pro. Then, paste the folder to the designated share drive.

Notify the network administrator for final transfer to the server. The web admin will then paste the folder on this default path on the web server machine: C:\Program Files\Adobe\RoboHelp Server 6.0\Servers\1\Projects.

Defining windows and selecting skins

A step that is often missed is the selection of a default window when publishing. To cover this base, go to the Project Manager and open the Windows virtual folder. Create a new window with its own unique name (something short, without spaces). While there, you can make other choices, such as which buttons you want to appear in the toolbar (Contents, Index, Search, Glossary). Then, select your window as the default on the first dialog of the publishing wizard.

Customize the look and feel of your help system by applying or creating your own skin using the WebHelp skin editor. Select that skin when publishing WebHelp Pro. For FlashHelp Pro you can use one of the pre-built skins or create your own with the help of the FlashHelp software development kit (SDK). By default, it is located along this path: C:\Program Files\Adobe\RoboHelp 6.0\FlashHelp SDK.

Provide context-sensitive help in web applications

If your help system supports a web application, you have several resources to provide context-sensitive help or link to topics from an application. For the author, the process of assigning map numbers is the same regardless of the application being supported.

It's easy to miss the folder that contains the context-sensitive APIs. They can be found here: C:\Program Files\Adobe\RoboHelp 6.0\CSH API. Documentation and programming code examples are included. The particular API that the web developer uses depends on the technology (e.g., Visual C++, C#, VB.NET, and ASP.NET). There is a .NET API (formerly RoboHelp Pro for .NET) to facilitate setting up the help system as a web service. This API formerly had to be bought separately, but it is now included with the basic package.

Install and administer Adobe RoboHelp Server 6

When you purchase the boxed software RoboHelp 6 and RoboHelp Server 6, you typically receive two CDs. One CD contains the author's client application, which is installed on your local machine. The second CD, which contains the RoboHelp Server software, should be given to your web administrator for installation on the Windows server machine running IIS 5+.

Because network security is so important these days, it is crucial that the RoboHelp Server 6 application be installed according to the step-by-step instructions. You can find the latest documentation at the Adobe RoboHelp Server 6 Permissions page in Adobe's TechNotes. There are both automatic and manual approaches to permissions setting. I found the automatic approach worked very well and was a welcome change from the old procedure. It uses scripts that are run before and after the Adobe RoboHelp Server 6 installation.

Regardless of the approach, the web administrator should set the NTFS permissions and create user accounts for the authors and groups. By convention, the groups are named RoboAdmin, RoboPublish, RoboReports and RoboRuntime. Certain permissions are set before and after the installation to make sure it runs smoothly. Experience shows that while the installation is fairly simple, any hitches typically point back to a permission that was not properly set.

Also, plan for the network environment. This has nothing to do with RoboHelp Server per se, but it's a best practice to map out a network strategy beforehand. An author may be working on a network across many domains and crossing many firewalls. For example, you may be in Florida, another author in London, and the web server in Arizona. In this kind of complex network, it is important to have full cooperation with the network administrator as well as the web administrator to resolve potential conflicts.

Note: If you are upgrading from a previous version (RoboEngine 4 and earlier), you must first uninstall before installing the new version.

Another server checkpoint is to make sure Microsoft Index Service is started in order for non-HTML documents (MS Office, PDFs) to be searchable.

Out of the box, the server software comes with an Access database. This may work fine for small organizations. For larger organizations with a lot of traffic, it is suggested that you use MS SQL Server or an Oracle database instead of Access. To make that process easier, an ODBC connector is now included in your software at no extra charge (this used to be sold separately.)

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