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As you probably know,
you can customise the appearance of the new RoboHelp
7/8 User Interface, using the "dockable pods"
concept. The layout, the appearance on the screen,
is known as the environment, and they are stored
in an "environment file". You can create various
customised environment files, and save them and
load a different environment file as desired.
View & Download User
Submissions
RoboHelp Training .
Confused by RH7 and RH8?
If you used RoboHelp 5 or 6 previously, you probably
found RH7 confusing to begin with - everything
has moved and is movable.
It's the transition to the new concept that I found
tricky, and learning how to rearrange these 'pods' to something
that will be useful and familiar. So, here are a
few Environment files that you can download, their
screen shots, and tips on how to load them onto
your system.
The old RoboHelp 6 E:
non-customisable
If you've worked with RH5 or 6 you will recognise
the ever-familiar layout. Easily identified tabs,
everything in its place.
RH7 / RH8 Default environment: customisable
Here is the default RH7
 ,
straight out of the box; RH8 is very similar.
With RH7 and RH8, you can see that almost everything has
moved since RH5 and 6. The working area in which
you can edit your topics is a smaller because you
need to see a useful number of files in the Topic
list.
Authorgraphic's
RH6 look-alike
for RH7
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After much experimenting, I found that I could
rearrange RH7 to resemble RH6. It's not an exact
match - that isn't possible - but this may help
you to cope with the transition from RH6 to RH7.
It's also MUCH easier to use than the default
- trust me!
Click
here to download this RHS file 'authorgraphic1.zip'
... See more below.
Disadvantages of the RH7 interface
- Adobe has renamed the "TOC", "Index" and
"Glossary" tabs, bottom left. They are now prefixed
by the name of your Help project. In this case,
it's the sample help project that comes with
RH7, called "Customer Care". This means that
each tab shows the first few letters of the
project name — in this
case the letter "C"
— depending on how
wide you squeeze the left hand pane. Unfortunately,
this means that you cannot see the name of the
tab at all, unless you have a really wide monitor.
You have to hover the mouse over each tab to
find out what it does.
- Adobe has changed the Icons on the tabs.
They used to be clearly different from one another
(see RH6 screenshot above) but now they are
almost identical. To begin with, you may have
to just guess which is which. Eventually you
may learn to spot the subtle differences at
a glance.
RH8 BUG! - There is a known
bug (reported to and acknowledged by Adobe and
waiting for a fix) in that certain environments
cause RH8 to crash, even though they worked
beautifully in RH7. The above is one of them.
Submit your favourite
files to share with others.
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To help other users overcome their initial difficulties
with the RH7 interface, why not share yours?
- Send your
files to Authorgraphic. If it is OK, we'll add
it to this page with a download link and recognition
of who you are.
- Tell us why you find this layout works well
for you? Why did you choose this arrangement?
What is it good for? What isn't it good for?
- Please email your contribution to
. Thank you!
Downloading from this web page
- Download the required
file from this web page. Unzip it into the same
folder as the RH7 default environment file.
If you installed RH7 with its default settings,
you will probably find it in
your folder –
C:\Documents and Settings\{your user name}\My
Documents\My RoboHelp Projects.
Saving your current
If you have already modified the default
,
I recommend that you save your existing
settings before loading a different one.
- Select menu > File > Save Environment
.
- At the Save Environment screen, enter
a new filename and click Save.
Loading an
file into RH7
- Open your Help Project in RH7.
- Select menu > File > Load Environment,
select the required environment file (extension
.rhs) and click Open.
Reset to Default
- If you want to switch back to the original
RH7 Default, select menu > File > Load default
Environment.
View and Download User Submissions.
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1. Here are three submissions
from Adobe Community Expert,
Peter Grainge.
Click here to download
'pg_standard.zip'
-
Peter
calls this one the "Standard Flyout"
,
where some of the 'pods' have been 'unpinned'
and appear along the left-hand edge of the screen.
Hover the mouse over a tab for a moment, and
that pod opens into view. Peter says,
"This is my normal working environment. It has
the Topic List as a tab in the editing pane
to give a comprehensive view of what is there
and it has flyouts on the left, these give access
to pods you use less frequently but don't want
to go hunting for when you do need them. I prefer
this to the Standard layout where they permanently
take up space on the screen." :-
Click
here to download 'pg-standard-flyout.zip'
Click here to download
'pg_toc.zip'
So, there are four examples. How
about submitting your
favourite
file? Remember to tell us why you created this layout;
what is it good for? what isn't it good for? Thanks!
RoboHelp Training and Technical Writing Courses!.
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I provide a number of Training Courses
to help people to write user-friendly content. If
you get your message across on the first reading,
this helps the user to understand better. Click
a link to see further information about the courses
available...
Authorgraphic
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