What's new in RoboHelp (2020 release) Update 5

RoboHelp (2020 release) Update 5 contains various enhancements related to customizing TOC icons for Frameless and HTML Help, improved TOC tile management for Frameless, support for Windows jump list, improved Reviewer experience, and ability to delete reviews. The update includes improved style editing capabilities for table, font weight, first line indent, and others. The update also contains various bug fixes related to authoring, version control, output, and publishing.

Read on to know more.

In this document,

Install the update

Ensure that you have an active Internet connection.

To install Update 5 of the 2020 release of RoboHelp, click Help > Check for Updates.

Then follow the instructions.

For more information, see this community post.

What's new and changed

Relative path in output preset

The output field of all presets requires an absolute path, which may cause issues when sharing of projects across different Operating Systems. File paths in Windows are different from macOS. In this update of RoboHelp, we've added an option to specify output path relative to the project.

In an output preset, on the General tab, enable the option Save output path as relative to project. After you enable the option, browse to the output path. The path to the output will now be a relative instead of absolute.

Windows jump list

A jump list shows the documents that you have opened recently. In this update of RoboHelp (2020 release), you can right-click the RoboHelp icon on the taskbar and see all recent projects you've worked on.

From the list, you can open any project.

Note: If you have pinned the RoboHelp icon on the taskbar, then you must unpin and pin the icon again for this feature to work. It is a Windows-only feature.

Review enhancements

There are a few enhancements to improve the reviewer experience in this update. You see a progress bar as the review and any topic loads. You also see a helpful suggestion in the topic area when no topic is open.

The list of topics opens expanded on the left by default. In the comments, you can use @ mentions to address fellow reviewers. Reviewers will get the notification for that comment. A new review option to Replace Text is added to aid the reviewers.

For more information, see RoboHelp review process.

Delete a review

In this update, an option to delete a review is added in RoboHelp. You can find this option in the context menu of the Review panel. Once you delete a review, all the deleted assets go to the deleted section of Creative Cloud. You can permanently delete the review from there if you want.

Enhancements to table properties

In this update, the way the table properties panel are shown and what they contain are enhanced. When you put your cursor in any table, then the Table Properties panel gets focus and stays as long as the focus remains in the table.

The Table Properties panel now contains all the styling options as well. You need not visit the Content Properties panel to alter the table style. The horizontal alignment options for table have been added in the Layout section of the properties.

Note: If you want to align left or right with text wrapping, then you must use Float left or right option in the Layout section.

Manage Home Page Tiles from TOC

In the Skin Editor, we've added an option Manage Tiles from TOC. If you enable this toggle, the tile images will be the ones that you've specified for the topics and sections in the TOC.

If you do not specify any tile image to any topic or section, then the tile does not appear in the output. This way you can control what all tiles you want to show. If you disable the toggle, then the tile images will be the ones specified in the Skin Editor.

Note: The feature to control the tile count from the Skin Editor has been deprecated. You can now control the tiles from within the TOC.

Custom TOC icon for Frameless output

You can now include custom TOC icons for specific sections and topics in a Frameless output. From the TOC properties panel, for any section you can specify the expand and collapse icons, and for topic, a single topic icon. In the output, these icons will override the icon specified in the skin.

A new feature is added in the skin editor to define topic icon. Navigate to Topic Page > Left Panel > topic-icon section, click the topic-icon item in the Left Panel section, you can specify the image in the Background property.

After you enable the option and launch the TOC, when you select a TOC item, on the Content Properties panel, you can see the options to set an icon for the item.

Custom TOC icon for CHM output

In RoboHelp Classic versions, for the Microsoft HTML Help (CHM) output, you could set an icon for any book or topic from the Advanced tab of the TOC Properties dialog.

You can do the same in RoboHelp (2020 release). Switch on the option Enable advanced HTML Help options in File > Project Settings dialog. You can then customize the TOC icons for the CHM output.

You can choose any icon from the list of 42 icons that are supported. By default it is set to Auto, which means the default icon will get assigned.

Mark as New: You can only enable this option if the icon type is Auto. If you enable the option, any topic against which you've enabled this option will have * next to it in the CHM output.

Note:

If you are upgrading from the classic version, all preferences are preserved.

Show TOC in CSH mode

In earlier releases of RoboHelp, when opening a topic via a mapped topic id (path/index?rhmapno={topic ID}), the page opened with the TOC panel in the hidden or collapsed state.

We've added an option to show the TOC when Frameless or Responsive HTML5 outputs are open in Context-Sensitive Help mode.

Use the query parameter rhmapfs=false. For example, ../index.htm?rhcsh=1&rhmapfs=false&rhmapno=2.

Option to use JavaScript while generating PDF

If you have JavaScript code that handles any rendition of the content, then you can use it at the time of generating a PDF. From the Advanced tab of PDF the preset, enable the option Enable JavaScript.

Support for font weight

You can now set Font Weight for any text component. In this update, you have more CSS options for finer control over the text weights like bolder, lighter, and so on.

First line indent

You can indent the text of the first line in a paragraph and set a positive or negative indent value in all the allowed units.

Use Text Indent field in the Font section of the properties panel.

List editing enhancements

You can modify the values of Indent, Spacing, or Prefix Width instead of just incrementing and decrementing the values.

The change applies to both autonumber and multi-level list editing.

Single Sign-on (SSO) option for RoboHelp Server

During publishing to Adobe RoboHelp Server, you must authenticate. The user name and password are set in the Publish Profiles. Now, you can use single sign-on, and enable the option in the Publish Profile dialog.

Sandbox support for Salesforce Knowledge Base

You can now log in to Sandbox server for Salesforce Knowledge Base and try out publishing before moving into production. In the Publish Profile dialog, you will find the options to disable SSL verification and log in to Sandbox.

Log in to Sandbox: A Sandbox is a copy of your production site, to which security restrictions can be applied. A Sandbox enables you to publish and test your content as a testing environment, before moving to production. Enable the option if you first want to log in to Sandbox.
Disable SSL verification: Enable the option to turn off SSL verification. When you sign in to the Sandbox, there will not be any SSL verification of the site.

For more information, see Publish to Salesforce.

Filter based on TOC in Translation

During translation, you can filter the set of files based on various parameters, such as, Translation Status, Modified date, and so on. Now you can also filter based on the TOC. Using this option, you can quickly narrow down the files used in a TOC.

Enhanced sentence segmentation in XLIFF export

The new SRX (Segmentation Rule eXchange)-based sentence segmentation has been added to provide greater control in the translation process. Content exported to XLIFF format uses this rule for all languages supported by RoboHelp. The segmentation will help in reducing error and dependency on the translation vendors for segmentation.

Every language supported by RoboHelp has a separate SRX file consisting of regular expression-based rules located in:

Windows: <Program Files>\Adobe\Adobe RoboHelp 2020\resources\data\template\srx_rules\
macOS: /Applications/Adobe RoboHelp 2020/Adobe RoboHelp 2020.app/Contents/Resources/resources/data/template/srx_rules/

You can add abbreviations to further enhance the segmentation during export to XLIFF.

For more information, see SRX rules.

Note:

We recommend that you take a backup of the SRX files before making any change.

Support for Google Translate API v2

After setting up machine translation by using Google Translate API and validating the API in RoboHelp, an error message, "Invalid credentials", displays.

To resolve the issue, perform the procedure below:

Create a project in Google Cloud Translation. For more information, see https://cloud.google.com/translate/docs/setup.
Link a billing account.
Add the API that you want to use.
Link a service account to the project.
Download the json file.
Use this json file to authenticate your translate request in RoboHelp.

Ensure that you have the correct json key file downloaded on the system. In RoboHelp, select the Google Translate API, and browse the path to the json file on the system.

Multi-factor Authentication support for Git

In Update 5, we've added Multi-factor Authentication support for GitHub, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps git https connections. The change is in line with the token authentication requirements enforced by GitHub. The basic password authentication will continue to work for other server providers.

For more information, see Create a Git connection profile.

Modified features in this update

Skin editor

In earlier releases of RoboHelp, you could control the number of TOC tiles on the home page of the Frameless output preset. In Update 5, the option has been deprecated. You can now control the tiles from the TOC editor itself. There is more flexibility when choosing tiles.

TOC editor

In the TOC editor, you can insert a child HTML Help file. It's only possible after you've enabled the option Enable Advanced HTML Help in Project Settings dialog.

Google Translation API

We've added support for Google Machine Translation API V2. You must re-create the translation profile to perform the machine translation.

Bugs fixed in this release

To see the list of bugs that have been fixed in this release, see Fixed issues.

Have a question or an idea?

If you have a question to ask or an idea to share, come and participate in the Adobe RoboHelp Community. We would love to hear from you and address your queries.