Paligo-Zendesk integration
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Robert Lauriston
Oct 27, 2016, 2:50:21 PM10/27/16
to paligo_tw
The good news is you can now publish to Zendesk articles.
The bad news is it really works only for single topics.
If you have a complicated document with several levels of topics, all the subtopics are folded into the top-level parent topic. For example, I have several hundred topics in a single document that we distribute as PDF and online help. The top-level topics are basically book titles: Programmer's Guide, Administrator's Guide, etc. On expert to Zendesk, all the topics in the Programmer's Guide got dumped into a single file.
To make matters worse, all cross-references are converted to static text. Paligo adds "the section called" before the topic name, but there's no way to tell which top-level file contains that topic. My docs are extensively cross-referenced (that's one of the reasons they're distributed as a single PDF or help system), so the Zendesk version is pretty much impossible to navigate.
This is apparently a limitation of Zendesk, so there's probably nothing Paligo can do about it.
Even with these limitations, it should be very useful for some users.
The bad news is it really works only for single topics.
If you have a complicated document with several levels of topics, all the subtopics are folded into the top-level parent topic. For example, I have several hundred topics in a single document that we distribute as PDF and online help. The top-level topics are basically book titles: Programmer's Guide, Administrator's Guide, etc. On expert to Zendesk, all the topics in the Programmer's Guide got dumped into a single file.
To make matters worse, all cross-references are converted to static text. Paligo adds "the section called" before the topic name, but there's no way to tell which top-level file contains that topic. My docs are extensively cross-referenced (that's one of the reasons they're distributed as a single PDF or help system), so the Zendesk version is pretty much impossible to navigate.
This is apparently a limitation of Zendesk, so there's probably nothing Paligo can do about it.
Even with these limitations, it should be very useful for some users.
Robert Lauriston
Dec 16, 2016, 3:31:18 PM12/16/16
to paligo_tw
Update on this, they tweaked the export to drop "the section called" and show cross-references like breadcrumbs including the release number (<edition> value).
So a link that in the online help is "see <link>Using widgets</link>" and in the PDF is "see <link>Using widgets</link> on page 123" appears in Zendesk as "see Using widgets (<i>2.5.4 Programmer's Guide > Parent topic(s) > Using widgets</i>)".
The support team is very happy about this.
So a link that in the online help is "see <link>Using widgets</link>" and in the PDF is "see <link>Using widgets</link> on page 123" appears in Zendesk as "see Using widgets (<i>2.5.4 Programmer's Guide > Parent topic(s) > Using widgets</i>)".
The support team is very happy about this.
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