About Adobe RoboHelp (2015 release)

The Adobe RoboHelp (2015 release) features are summarized in this sample project.

The Adobe RoboHelp (2015 release) main product page on Adobe's site and the Starter page when you open Adobe RoboHelp (2015 release) will take you to the following important resources:

 

Feature

Description

Enable end-users to quickly find relevant content

Dynamic Content Filtering

 

Responsive layouts allow your content to be viewed with ease on desktops, tablets and smartphones. The appearance adapts to suit the device, RoboHelp takes care of that. Now RoboHelp (2015 release) adds something extra for your end-users, dynamic content filtering.

  • You provide the filter options to suit the requirement be that geographical regions, trade specialization, equipment type and so on.

  • The end-user chooses what they want to see rather than having to wade through everything you have provided.

Whatever options the end-user chooses, the results come from one output. Authors who have used Content Categories with its output for each category will welcome this reduced footprint.

Authors can quickly see how the options will work by using the Tagged Output View.

You can set this up so that the user can select just one of the options or so that they can multi-pick. If you have used Content Categories (Dynamic User-Centric Content) in an earlier version of RoboHelp you will welcome the greater options Dynamic Content Filtering brings, so will your end-users.

Dynamic Content Filtering comes with URL support which means that you can embed the filters within a URL and then use that URL in CSH calls giving more targeted contextual help.

How this is all done  is described in Dynamic Content Filtering.

Make your content mobile ready with the best-in-class publishing

New HTML5 layout

RoboHelp (2015 release) ships with a brand new layout that greatly enhances the end-user experience. In the new layout you can:

  • Configure the search results to appear in the content or topic panes

  • Use the Comments field in the Status tab of Topic Properties for Descriptions that appear in the search instead of the first few lines of the topic.

  • Show breadcrumbs and search context in the search results.

  • Easily show/hide widgets such as index/glossary/TOC and so on.

  • Add social widgets out of the box so that pages can be shared on Facebook or Twitter.

  • Choose to hide the branding bar on smartphones to give more screen space.

  • Convert to right to left layout with the click of a button. Note that you cannot create topics using right to left languages in RoboHelp. The content can be created by translation agencies or Technical Communication Suite users can link to FrameMaker content.

The new layout remembers the state of the books in the TOC and two or more books can be expanded.

Embed custom fonts in ePub

In RoboHelp (2015 release) you can embed a custom font in the ePub output, which ensures that users see high quality typography irrespective of whether they have the font on their systems or not.

You need to have the distribution rights for the embedded fonts.

Faster and better HTML5 output

The Responsive HTML5 outputs are faster and better than ever before. The HTML5 code for the desktop view was made cleaner in RoboHelp 11 to enable the pages to load faster with a 50% reduction in loading time and take less space with savings of ~20KB per topic. This improvement has now been extended to work with all devices.

Create apps for iOS, Android and Windows platforms

Mobile app output support

Mobile app generation is greatly simplified in RoboHelp (2015 release) . You can generate mobile apps for your content for iOS and Android platforms in a seamless one click generation process. The workflow uses an integration with PhoneGap.

If you need to generate multiple apps, you will need to purchase a Phonegap license separately.

A new ribbon based user interface and productivity enhancements

Ribbon based UI

Now work in a modern Ribbon Based interface where all menu items are logically grouped in various tabs according to common workflows allowing easy accessibility and more productivity. Some tabs are context sensitive; the Table tab for example only appears when you are editing a table.

Customize the interface by choosing one of four themes and select either colored or greyscale icons. Boost your productivity with the customizable quick access toolbar, contextual tabs, and much more.

If your screen size is limited in depth you can set the ribbon to auto-hide when not needed.

Enhanced find and replace

Now work much faster with the revamped Find & Replace functionality. You now use the same pod whether you want to look in a single topic or search through all your topics. You can search in backward or forward direction and set the search scope to "current project", "current window", "specific folder", or all opened files.

Multi line search is also supported and you can search in the TOC and Index pods. You can zip through search results to easily edit the topic by double clicking any line.

Named condition build expressions

If you work with complex build expressions you will know how difficult it can be to remember the purpose of each one. Now you can name the expressions making choosing the right one so much simpler. It eliminates the hassle of remembering and deciphering the logic every time you want to use an expression.

You can see this in the Dynamic Content Filtering topic.

Enhanced conditional tag indicators

With enhanced conditional tags indicators in Adobe RoboHelp (2015 release) , the readability of the content is not compromised even if multiple tags are applied on any given content. Furthermore, it is easy to figure out which tags are applied and where conditions change within a topic. Cross hatching broke legibility, overlining means you can still read the content.

Remember project state

In Adobe RoboHelp (2015 release) you no longer need to remember which topics and pods were opened the last time when you closed a project as the project state is automatically remembered Each time you a open a project, it opens in exactly the state in which it was closed.

Note: Which topics were open is held in the CPD file so if you delete the CPD, RoboHelp will not reopen the topics.

Adobe Captivate support

Easily integrate HTML5 and SWF content created with Adobe Captivate. Enhance your help content with show-me demos, how-to movies, and interactive quizzes.

Locate in Project Manager

Need to locate a specific topic in the Project Manager? No problem, with just a single click on the topic, or in the TOC and topic list pod, you can locate and highlight the topic in the Project Manager.

Click Locate Item in the View group on the Project tab or right click in a topic and select from the context menu.

Easily update styles

You can easily edit the style in a CSS by first applying inline styling and then click Update Style so that the CSS is updated.

 

See About RoboHelp 11 if you want to know what was added in that version.