Hi all!
We are planning to migrate to the HTML5 output. However our users need access to the manuals both offline and online. Also they need to be able to access it both on iPad/Android tablets and on PCs.
For PCs we are looking into using a service similar to Box.com for syncing the manuals (enabling offline html5 support), however for the iPad/Tablets I'm not quite sure how to deal with this?
The support for HTML5 in the Box.com/Dropbox viewers are not good enough to make the html5 help usable in the native box/dropbox apps.
What are your take on offline iPad/Tablet support? Is PDFs the only way to do this at the moment?
//MJ
Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
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kwag_myers
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Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
Have you considered Flare's Mobile Output?
"I'm tryin' to think, but nothin' happens!" - Curly Joe Howard
Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
The mobile web help output is already pretty dated and you can't use any of the fancy HTML5/TopNav stuff if you go that way.
You won't be able to use Box to distribute this unless you give all of your users Editor rights so they can use the files offline and even then you are not going to be open them on an iOS device. On Android you would have to manually set it up on each one using a third party file manager, which would allow you to browse to your index like you would in Windows Explorer.
All of that is of course, ridiculously unacceptable.
I am in the middle of developing offline output for iOS myself and we are using PhoneGap to do this. You can (fairly) easily turn any stack of HTML, JAVA, and CSS into a native app. I am not done yet so I can't tell you how successful it will be in the end but it will be way better than trying to use Box. If you use the online build service it is really easy. We are compiling locally to avoid exporting our content to a third party server.
In any case, if you want distribute to iOS you will need to register as an iOS app developer.
Remember that if you go this route, you can only update content by publishing a new version of the app, it will not dynamically update unless you get a developer to write a real grown up app for you.
You won't be able to use Box to distribute this unless you give all of your users Editor rights so they can use the files offline and even then you are not going to be open them on an iOS device. On Android you would have to manually set it up on each one using a third party file manager, which would allow you to browse to your index like you would in Windows Explorer.
All of that is of course, ridiculously unacceptable.
I am in the middle of developing offline output for iOS myself and we are using PhoneGap to do this. You can (fairly) easily turn any stack of HTML, JAVA, and CSS into a native app. I am not done yet so I can't tell you how successful it will be in the end but it will be way better than trying to use Box. If you use the online build service it is really easy. We are compiling locally to avoid exporting our content to a third party server.
In any case, if you want distribute to iOS you will need to register as an iOS app developer.
Remember that if you go this route, you can only update content by publishing a new version of the app, it will not dynamically update unless you get a developer to write a real grown up app for you.
Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
Thank you for your replies.
The mobile output is as you said pretty outdated and even if we did go that way we would get problems with the html-viewer in box. I think I'll have to look into developing an app using the box API for downloading/syncing the files but view them in the native browser from that apps repository.
As we need to do quite frequent updates, the PhoneGap probably wont work but thanks for the info anyway.
I'll update my progress here later on. We are probably not the only ones looking into offline manuals for iOS/Android.
//MJ
The mobile output is as you said pretty outdated and even if we did go that way we would get problems with the html-viewer in box. I think I'll have to look into developing an app using the box API for downloading/syncing the files but view them in the native browser from that apps repository.
As we need to do quite frequent updates, the PhoneGap probably wont work but thanks for the info anyway.
I'll update my progress here later on. We are probably not the only ones looking into offline manuals for iOS/Android.
//MJ
Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
Reviving this old thread. I have Flare content that will be used offline on a Samsung tablet. Is there a way to display the HTML5 output correctly? Do I need a special app? The attached file is how the default.htm page of the out-of-the-box "Slideshow" project appears... Thanks. Isabelle
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Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
To my knowledge, PhoneGap is still the only way to do this as I described previously.
Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
Thanks - I will have a look.
In the meantime, I found that I can display the file properly using Chrome when I type this in the address bar: file:///sdcard/
This opens a directory and I simply click on the appropriate folders until I get to the default.htm file.
Not ideal but since my output at the moment is intended for a handful of of engineers, perhaps good enough.
In the meantime, I found that I can display the file properly using Chrome when I type this in the address bar: file:///sdcard/
This opens a directory and I simply click on the appropriate folders until I get to the default.htm file.
Not ideal but since my output at the moment is intended for a handful of of engineers, perhaps good enough.
Re: Distributing HTML5 help for offline use
That's good to know. I couldn't get anything like that to work on iOS.
There is an online build option for Phonegap that you can probably use that automates most of the complicated bits. We had to go with a local/manual process due to the size of our content. I would suggest exploring the former because the APKs will be easier for you to version and maintain than a "loose" set of files.
There is an online build option for Phonegap that you can probably use that automates most of the complicated bits. We had to go with a local/manual process due to the size of our content. I would suggest exploring the former because the APKs will be easier for you to version and maintain than a "loose" set of files.