Hacking Mike Chamber’s Flash Resource Manager to use Flash 8 Help Docs

After downloading and installing Flash 8 today, I found myself in a serious crisis — Mike Chambers Flash Resource Manager has become an indispensable part of my daily workflow and I couldn’t access Flash 8 help through it. Knowing a busy Mike was unlikely to provide an update in a timely fashion (read today) , I did what any developer would do–I decided to “help myself”.

After quickly peering at the install folder I found an easy solution:

1. Open the file app.config in Notepad or Wordpad (found along this path in Windows — C:\Program Files\Flash Resource Manager\config\app.config).
2. Change the following 3 lines to reflect the paths created by your Flash 8 install:

• <flashhowtodirpath>C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\Configuration\HelpPanel\HowDoI</FlashHowtoDirPath>
• <userhelpdirpath>C:\Documents and Settings\[user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\Configuration\HelpPanel\Help\</userhelpdirpath>
• <flashhelpdirpath>C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Macromedia\Flash 8\en\Configuration\HelpPanel\Help\</flashhelpdirpath>

3. Save the file.
4. Relaunch Flash Resource Manager

That’s it! You should now see the Flash Help docs in the tree view and continue to have tabbed help available to assist your coding endeavors.