RoboHelp 8 - Resource Manager

Resource Manager allows you to create a library of images, multimedia and suchlike that can be shared with other authors.

How it works

By default the Resource Manager will be created in your Windows profile but it can be anywhere you like, including on a network.

The default categories are shown below and each shows the file types defined for the category.

You can apply any of the file types to any of the categories and you can rename the categories, delete them or add to them. You can also add to the default file types.

When you add a category, a folder with the category name is created within the root folder in Windows. What you see is the files of the type defined for the category. Thus assuming you only defined CSS for Style Sheets, you will see any CSS files but not any other files that may be put in that folder for some reason.

You could rename the categories Author 1, 2, 3 and 4 and so on and then store all their resources in that one folder or sub folders if that suits your way of working. You must create the folders within Resource Manager and not directly in Windows Explorer.

The Resource Manager Pod

  • Click the first icon to choose your Root Folder and define the categories. The root folder can have subfolders in Windows but you can only point to one Root Folder.
  • Click the funnel to see which file types are applied to the categories.
  • Click the folder icon to create folders within a category.

Categories

Browse to where you want to store the resources and define the file types for each category.

You can apply any file type to any category.

Using the resources

Just drag and drop them into your project and they are then added to it.

Changing the files in the library does not update your project.

Summary

This will be welcomed by many authors and will save a lot of browsing when adding resources to your projects.

In addition to this way of working, which does have advantages, I would like to see an option to turn off the categories and have the Resource Manager just show whatever is in my chosen folder and its sub-folders. If you agree, please submit a feature request.

You might also want to request the ability to define one folder for Images, another for Style Sheets and so on.