arlenjacobs said:
...What happens if you update FTView but not RSLE? or the other?
Yes, that's a very good point and highly likely to be the case. As, I said, there is often a very good reason for these changes and it's quite easy for us to bemoan such facts, without considering the "bigger picture".
Having said that, FTVS and RSLE have always been extremely closely aligned software products. Each updated version of FTVS is released with an equivalent updated version of RSLE and it is intended to be embedded in the FTVS software environment. It's not to say you cannot break the intended relationships, but generally they would have expected the matching two be installed together. Hence, the Help content would also match. Perhaps it has too often been the case that they were found to be "playing away" with another version, and so they decided to let them go their separate ways, for good, at least with regard to the RSLE Help?
But, on the shortcut to the RSLinx Enterprise Help - the developers could use a fixed location for the installation of this Help applet, if it does not already exist. That way, a shortcut link, from any other location, inside or outside of software, could easily open it, irrespective of versions, within reason. Even if RSLE or FTVS are updated separately, the link should and could remain valid between the two.
But, another but, what if a feature in one product version relies on the other being at a compatible version, and it is not? The interlinked and convenient shortcut to the Help could be stating things, in what appears to be a native environment for that Help content, that are simply not true, or available?
Keeping a products Help within itself is probably the better way to go, for a normal piece of standalone software. But RSLE is not normal. It is a complimentary communications tool for the FactoryTalk platform and so is intertwined in many a web. Because you do not open the software as a standalone product, instead opening it in an embedded fashion within other products, it is very difficult to distinguish or establish a separation between the two products. The old Help being a good example of interdependency. Within this environment, they have now chosen to provide the Help at that separated level, without making it any clearer to less knowledgeable users, that they are, or ever were separate products.
So now the old and obscure routes to the RSLE Help, which did not previously matter as you had it all in the main FTVS Help, are the only means to access what is, undoubtedly, extremely important information, especially for those less knowledgeable users who again, may not even realize the degree of separation at play here.
You can hear a lot of "Hey? Why is there nothing in the FTVS Help about RSLE?" after this change. But hopefully our little discussion here will have enlightened at least a few good souls that Rockwell wont get to take!
Just for good measure, here is that screenshot I promised showing the old way with the exact same RSLE content in both the FTVS & RSLE Help...
Regards,
George