Can you use CSH with WebHelp AIR target?

[NorthEast]

Is it possible to use CSH with the WebHelp AIR target?

I've had a look in Flare's help, which tells you how to use CSH with regular WebHelp, but I can't find any info that tells me if I can/can't use CSH with WebHelp AIR.

An installed WebHelp AIR project includes the xxx_CSH.htm file, but as you open the help using the EXE file, I'm not sure if/how you can pass a CSH ID to the EXE file.

[Kleb]

I looked around in the Flare help and didn't see how to do it either.

It certainly is possible for the AIR application to access the command line arguments, but whether Madcap has implemented that, I don't know. Perhaps if you use the same command line arguments as the Madcap viewer?

[Skooter]

I was about to ask the same question when I saw it had already been posted. My guess is it won't work, but then I'm a pessimist.

[Richard Ferrell]

Not currently, we are looking at having more documenation on this in an upcoming release.

[Skooter]

As per DotNet Help, another frustrating so-near-and-yet-so-far attempt to come up with a viable alternative to building a .chm file. As per DotNet Help, I can't changethe title caption (ignores the "Installer Settings | Program Title" I entered as part of WebHelp Air options) and the Air installation package is painfully slow (for a 26 mb in size .AIR file which is pretty much what the old .chm file used to be.

[Paul Griffiths]

Try setting the title of your AIR Help in the skin file (Basic tab, Caption field). Works for me.

[RamonS]

Not currently, we are looking at having more documenation on this in an upcoming release.

So WebHelp AIR is not CSH capable? That was a major flaw that made the first version of DotNetHelp unusable as well. I don't really get what purpose a help format has when it is not csh capable.

[Richard Ferrell]

Talk to Adobe! They have not released it yet.

[Skooter]

Couldn't MadCap just re-invent .chm files? Give them skins and get around the security limitations etc?

[KevinDAmery]

I think that's what DotNet help was supposed to be. Hasn't worked out so well.

[Richard Ferrell]

MadCap's Software Dot Net Output, is a great output for your Dot Net Application. While a CHM is a nice compressed file, Dot Net Help is not, but the biggest advantage of our Dot Net Help is, you can embeded the help directly into your Dot Net Application.

So comparing Dot Net to a CHM, Thier uses are really quite different.

[RamonS]

[...] but the biggest advantage of our Dot Net Help is, you can embeded the help directly into your Dot Net Application.

And one of the "great benefits" that doesn't really go well with many users. Screen real estate is precious when considering that there are still many that use single 4:3 monitor systems. Having the help take over 1/3rd or more of the screen when embedded into the application is bloody annoying. MS Office does that and I haven't met too many who think that is a good design.

[Richard Ferrell]

We give you the option of how big to make it your Dot Net Application, but if you don't want the help as part of your application, we do have our other output types that anyone can use.

[RamonS]

Yes, but in order to present some reasonable space for the help text 1/3rd of the screen is about as narrow as I would make it by default....or just have these bland four word sentences in half a dozen sentence topics like in the MS Office "help". In order to prevent endless scrolling one has to reduce the text amount. While is for sure cuts down on the blah-blah it tends to make help to be so basic that it becomes useless.
And yes, there are other formats one can use, which many do despite the app being DotNet based, which is the point made and the reason why DotNetHelp isn't really an option for replacing CHMs.

And what did Adobe not release yet? AIR? Or the option to read in command line parameters?

[KevinDAmery]

The ability to make CSH calls to AIR.

[RamonS]

Well, yea, but that is a design issue of the AIR application, so it would be MadCap's task. What I wonder is if AIR is lacking a feature that would be needed to make CSH work, such as accepting parameters. But that is something I severely doubt as Flash does that.

[Paul Griffiths]

Re: AIR. I think Ramon is right about this. It's surely up to MadCap to develop a CSH API for their own application. At the moment all Flare is doing is using AIR as "just another browser" in which to host WebHelp.

[Chicago Cat Lady]

The ability to make CSH calls to AIR.

Is this now available in Flare R4.1?

There is no Help topic entitled "Connecting Adobe Air to an Application" for developers, but according to the Output Type Comparison Table, WebHelp Air does support context-sensitive Help.

Thanks in advance.

[Paul Griffiths]

As far as I am aware MadCap do not (yet) support CSH calls to WebHelp AIR output. To be fair, again as far as I am aware, Adobe have not published the CSH API for their AIR output either (although this may have changed in RoboHelp v8).

[Kleb]

Time for Madcap to start working on it...

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/communitye ... ostId=8003

[Paul Griffiths]

Well, this is not quite the same as publishing the CSH API for AIRHelp. We've always known that it's possible to pass parameters to an AIR application. The question is, which parameters?

[Kleb]

I would think that madcap could define the parameters they want passed when an AIR application is called (id or topic path), write the code in the AIR application, and then release the information to us so we can call the AIR application from our application (whether it be AIR or .NET or something else).

AIR is just another framework for creating applications (like Java or .NET).