Three Ways to Customize a Mobile App

This blog entry explains some ways that you can cus­tomize the look and feel of your mobile app using Robo­Help (2015 release). This blog post focus­es on cre­at­ing a mobile app that runs on Android devices.

Displaying or Hiding your Table of Contents, Index, Glossary, or Filters

In Robo­Help (2015 release), you can cre­ate a table of con­tents and index if you feel it makes it eas­i­er for users to nav­i­gate your help sys­tem. In my expe­ri­ence, cre­at­ing an index for a client is increas­ing­ly rare, as users appear to rely more and more on search to find the answers they need. You may also want to include a Glos­sary if your mobile app con­tains many terms that need to be explained.

Fil­ters per­mit users to select the type of con­tent that appears in an online help sys­tem. For exam­ple, let’s say I have two audi­ences for an online help project: sys­tem admin­is­tra­tors and end users. The read­ers can con­trol the type of con­tent that dis­plays in the help by click­ing the Fil­ter but­ton and select­ing the check box­es for the dif­fer­ent audi­ences. Sys­tem admin­is­tra­tors, for instance, can select the fil­ter so that they only see the con­tent that per­tains to them. For more infor­ma­tion about the fil­ter fea­ture, see Robo­Help 2015 pro­vides users with more con­trol.

To hide or dis­play a table of con­tents, index, glos­sary, or filters:

1. In the Out­put menu, click Mobile App.

2. In the Mobile App Set­tings dia­log box, select Gen­er­al.
3. Click Cus­tomize Select­ed Lay­out.
4. In the Lay­out Cus­tomiza­tion dia­log box, select Basic settings in the Lay­out Com­po­nents list.
5. In the Prop­er­ties list, select whether you want to show or hide your mobile app’s table of con­tents, index, glos­sary or filters:

a) For the table of con­tents, index, glos­sary, or fil­ter, select true or false from the adja­cent drop­down list.

6. Click Save.

Adding a Logo

If you add a logo, it appears in the top-left cor­ner of the mobile app. I cre­at­ed a sim­ple help app for a fic­ti­tious prod­uct called InfoPath.

To add a logo to the mobile app:

1. In the Out­put menu, click Mobile App.

2. In the Mobile App Set­tings dia­log box, select Gen­er­al.
3. Click Cus­tomize Select­ed Layout.
4. In the Lay­out Cus­tomiza­tion dia­log box, select Head­er in the Lay­out Com­po­nents list.
5. In the Prop­er­ties list, click … beside Logo to select an image.

6. In the Open dia­log box, nav­i­gate to a PNG image that you want to use for the logo and click Open. It’s best to use a square shaped logo. I used an image that was 72 by 72 pixels.
7. Click Save.

Adding a Mobile App Icon

A mobile app icon is the image that appears when the app is installed on an Android smart­phone or tablet. The fol­low­ing image shows an example:

To add a mobile app icon:

1. In the Out­put menu, click Mobile App.

2. In the Mobile App Set­tings dia­log box, select Appli­ca­tion Details.
3. In the Icon field,  click the browse icon and nav­i­gate to a PNG file. I used a 72  by 72 pix­els file—the same image that I used for the logo.  For more infor­mation about the rec­om­mend­ed icon sizes, see GitHub’s web page.

4. Click Save and Gen­er­ate.

Robo­Help (2015 release) gen­er­ates the mobile app.

5. Click View Result in the Result: Mobile App out­put has been gen­er­ated suc­cess­fully dia­log box.

Downloading the Mobile App

The next step explains how to get the mobile app loaded onto your Android tablet or smartphone.

To down­load the mobile app to your Android phone:

1. In your phone’s or tablet’s brows­er, type the URL that appears in the Mobile App Out­put dia­log box.
   
2. Alter­na­tive­ly, you can down­load the mobile app using a QR Reader.

a) Down­load a QR read­er to your Android phone. I down­loaded the QR Code Read­er from Google Play.

b) Using the QR read­er, scan the QR code in the Mobile App Out­put dia­log box.

The mobile app down­loads to your tablet or smartphone.

Viewing the Mobile App

Once the mobile app has been down­loaded and installed on your com­put­er, tap the mobile app you cre­at­ed. I haven’t attempt­ed to doc­u­ment down­load­ing and installing the app, due to the dif­fer­ent ver­sions of Android.