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Journals by EmailI’ve been using the FlashHelp format for my help systems for the last few years. FlashHelp is a variant of WebHelp, basically running on the same logic. Instead of being made up of static images, though, the skin consists of Flash movies. The idea is to have a spiffy-looking help system that will look and behave the same across operating systems and Web browsers.
I use this format for those benefits, and actually, when I first started using RoboHelp, a related project had a FlashHelp system. I used that project to familiarize myself with RoboHelp in general, so I figured I’d just use FlashHelp too. I had attended a couple of workshops on Flash in college, so I knew some basics and could get into the .fla files to make edits to them and customize the skins.
However, after using this format for nearly four years, I’ve had thoughts of using WebHelp instead.
Security Warning
Our Web apps run in secure environments, and when a FlashHelp system is called in IE, we get the nonsecure items warning. With Captivate demos, I’ve tracked this down to the http references in the Flash <object> tags. I’m in the middle of trying it out with the Flash files, but there are a lot of them with these tags, and I’m waiting to see the results. But to have to click “Yes” every time I want to see the help system is annoying, and I can’t see that IE actually blocks anything whether we click Yes or No. I can do without that warning, and I’m sure the users can as well.
Load Time
It takes several seconds for the entire FlashHelp skin to load. WebHelp comes up in just over a second. Especially when they’re in the middle of a task and pressed for time, people don’t want to wait for a fancy-schmancy Flash movie to load before they can start getting answers.
Lack of Support
In RoboHelp 8, the WebHelp search was improved. That improvment apparently didn’t extend to FlashHelp even though it’s WebHelp based. It seems that hardly any effort is spared for FlashHelp improvements, probably because the FlashHelp forum on the Adobe site has hundreds fewer threads than many of the other forums, suggesting that not many help authors use the format, so it’s not worth the expense. That in turn probably discourages people from using it, and so forth.
I hesitate on this point only because if I abandon FlashHelp, I probably won’t keep up on it, so I may not be able to help anyone who comes to the forum looking for assistance with that format. There aren’t many people who respond to FlashHelp questions, and I’d like to still be able to do it. But it’s not a good reason to keep a format that I don’t think is benefiting my users.
Lack of Know-How
I mentioned that I know some basics of editing Flash files. But that’s as far as it goes. I don’t know a thing about ActionScript. Not being a Flash developer, I can’t expand the functionality of the help systems if I’d like to—I can only edit what’s there. If there are bugs, they aren’t likely to get fixed (see the previous point), and I probably can’t fix them myself. I can discover a workaround here and there, but I can’t get into the guts of things and fix them, I’m letting some time go to waste.
I’m not sure when I’ll take the plunge and switch formats. Fortunately, since FlashHelp is a WebHelp variant, making the switch wouldn’t affect the help calls in the applications. I may have to get to the point where I have some extra time, but that looks like it’s not going to happen right away, which is a good thing.
Related posts (auto-generated):
- FlashHelp Tech Tip: Fixing the "Flash Player has stopped a potentially unsafe operation" Problem
- Tech Tip: Checking WebHelp/FlashHelp Output Files in to Subversion
- FlashHelp Tech Tip: Removing IE's "Click to activate and use this control" Message
- Review of Adobe RoboHelp 8: Improvements
- RoboHelp Packager for AIR Critique, Part 2
4 Comments to 'Why I'm Thinking about Dropping the FlashHelp Format'
April 1, 2009
I’ve used the FlashHelp format once… maybe twice. Never as a primary help system. I think that FlashHelp is going away actually. Adobe is promoting their Adobe Air client as a new type of “FlashHelp”. I’m not surprised that nobody uses FlashHelp. I never really saw it as a viable help option. It was just something that looked pretty and made people say “Oooo…”
April 2, 2009
As I mentioned, it was designed with specific strengths. But it does kind of give the impression of being showy. If you’ve ever looked at the Factory skin in the gallery, you know what I mean. That one looks like the Flash developers who built it did things just because they could, but I wouldn’t be surprised if no one had ever actually used that skin. The AIR format is kind of a replacement, I suppose, by getting around browser issues and being its own application. But I’m not sold on that format yet; I think it has some maturing to do still.
April 7, 2009
Ben: Do you have the latest version of the TCS (version 2)? If so, you should check out the AIR model for help.
April 8, 2009
Joe, I tried out the AIR format while using the RH8 trial version, and I’m still waiting for that format to be massaged. When I originally tried out the RoboHelp Packager for AIR, I was put off by the fact that it seemed each help system had to be installed on the user’s machine as a separate application. The impression I had gotten from Adobe’s site was that the idea was AIR would be installed once on a user’s machine, and then launching an AIR application each time after that would not require installation. I don’t know if the latest version requires the repeated installations—do you know?