Nov 18
Adobe Community Help
2008 at 06.28 pm posted by Veerle Pieters
Adobe is now shipping the CS4 suite so that means all new applications and new things to learn. Judging from the amount of questions that I receive about Illustrator or Photoshop there are a lot of people who didn’t discover the Community Help yet. It’s something new that was launched together with CS4. In the past it was hard to find relevant help, but this is a step in the right direction.
What is Adobe Community Help?
This help system is a whole new direction for Adobe because as the name suggests, it's no longer only Adobe that is updating the help files, it's now with help from the community. This new help taps into the regular Adobe Help, Support, Design Center, Developer Connection, Forums, and online community content. This way you get access to the most up-to-date resources such as this blog for example. Adobe is using a Google technology called Google Custom Search Engine. You can also comment on their content and Adobe has active community members to act as moderators by responding to comments and adding quality content so that they improve the user learning experience.
Illustrator moderator
I'm proud to say that Adobe also asked me to be an Illustrator moderator. In case you are wondering what a moderator does the following list should give you a better idea.
- Links to external websites in Help
- Inclusion of external websites in search results, through the Google Custom Search Engine service
- Inclusion of non-Adobe personnel in the group of folks with the ability to moderate LiveDocs comments and submit to the search engine.
It was with sadness in my heart that I had to decline this offer, because there are only so many hours in a day. I'm already so busy with work and my blog, that there isn't just any time left to help users there too. You are probably thinking, what a shame. Fear not, I'm still going to do my fair share for the Illustrator community. The reason why I don't have time is because I'm already helping users out who e-mail me or ask questions in the comments of my blog when I post tutorials. I'm going to keep this up and you'll find the Adobe Community Help very useful as my content is included in the Community Help. This way people who don't browse blogs get to benefit from it too. I'm looking forward to doing more tutorials about Illustrator CS4 and Photoshop on my blog so that the Help feature has good content to add :)
Try it out
I recommend that you take it for a spin and see what you think. Most Creative Suite 4 products have the in-product search field. You can type your query in the product and launch a custom search. As time marches on, the Adobe Community Help will grow and become better and better. Don't be afraid to comment if you have suggestions for making it even better.
Want to learn more?
A good and not expensive source to learn more about Illustrator, Photoshop, or web design is by joining the Tuts+ sites. You get access to the source files for just $9 a month. So your ONE membership gives you access to members-only content for ALL the Plus sites. I've written a tutorial for the Vector Tuts section.
8served
1
good to know…
I’m looking for as much help on Photoshop and Illustrator as possible. this one is pretty helpful :)
2
Thanks for the link. Informative post. :)
3
Veerle, congrats on saying no to a great opportunity :)
I know that may feel counter intuitive, as the instinct is to never let something pass you by. However as I am sure you know in the long run it will be better for your productivity, and sanity!
Glad to hear that your blog content will be featured in the CS4 Community Help…now I can stop forwarding every article you write to my friends ;)
4
A great resource for other good blogs will be helpful, as well as entertaining. I can’t wait to use community help
5
I just wanted to say that you rock, your site rocks & everythin’ you do kick a**!!! (sorry for not being good with words when under emotional stress)
6
I like the new interface but other than that, there aren’t many new features that I’d use.
Flash on the other hand had a really nice update with ton of great new features (like the new timeline and 3d stuff).
7
I like the new interface but other than that, there aren’t many new features that I’d use.
Flash on the other hand had a really nice update with ton of great new features (like the new timeline and 3d stuff).
8
Great to know! Adobe has definitely been needing to take some serious steps towards improving their help community. As most of us can attest, we find the vast majority of our help on sites other than Adobe.com.
Besides the online help community, I would like to see Adobe improve the help files that ship with their products. At least give us the option of installing a large help database. CS4 does seem to be an improvement in this area, so I have to give Adobe credit that they certainly seem to be heading in the right direction.
Congrats on the invite to work with Adobe! As a businessperson, I count on tutorials everyday to help me learn Illustrator and Photoshop, or just to get inspiration. You can only look at so many business card designs without them all starting to look alike.
Keep up the great work and I look forward to using the Adobe Community Help.
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