Every project file on VideoHive is required to have a built-in help file. This help file is intended to serve as a quick guide for customers walking them through your organizational methods, naming conventions, compositions, layers, and effect parameters. The help file should be a short and effective guide on your file within the software.
What Should I Add to my Help file?
Put yourself in a customer's shoes, and think about your file, and what elements within it you'd want to change if you bought the file for a project.
Folder Structure
Right off the bat, you're going to want to explain your folder structure. Making a clean folder structure to begin with makes this part easy. Explain how your compositions are set up, and then touch on some important layers within those compositions. For example, let's say your project has one main placeholder image that can be replaced with the customer's asset. You're going to want to tell the customer where the placeholder can be found within the project. The following text would be appropriate:
"To change the main placeholder, navigate to the folder "Compositions" and then open the composition titled "Main_Placeholder". From there you will see two layers. Your asset needs to be placed on the top layer."
This way you can help your customer getting familiar with the structuring of the project file making it easy to navigate through your project folder and locating essential elements.
Customization Process
This is where you can guide through the customization process. Below is a list of elements that you should explain to your customers. While discussing these elements, not only should you explain where they are, but also explain any tips or hints that will make modifications easier.
- Placeholders - Explain where the placeholder compositions are located, and how a user should approach replacing them.
- Text & Titles - Explain where the text compositions are located, and how these can be modified.
- Backgrounds - If your project contains extra backgrounds, or one background can be modified, explain how to replace them.
- Colors - If you have any means of controlling color, through an effect or another form, explain which attribute within the effect changes the color.
- Extending or Shortening the Animation (not required, but appreciated)
Tools and Tips
When explaining these changes, try to include any tips or hints that will make these changes faster. Doing this also allows you to explain modifications in a shorter process.
Always remember that you are not teaching customers how to use the software, you are teaching them how to modify your project. A good strategy is making effective use of pre-compositions so that customers only need to open a folder called Modify (or something along those lines).Within this folder would be all the compositions that could be modified.
Some authors choose to cover handy tips which customers always appreciate. For instance, you could explain how to replace the current layer with the new one. While retaining any effects, keyframes, or settings that were on the original placeholder layer, by holding the ALT key on the keyboard and dragging the new asset on top of the selected layer.
Which Format Should I Choose?
At this point, you need to choose which format of your help file. And this really comes down to your preference. We accept the following formats that are cross OS compatible (Windows & Mac), and that can effectively explain the process:
- Video Tutorials - Many authors find screen recordings much easier to create. Especially in terms of time. Videos are also preferred by many customers. Video tutorials must be provided in the MOV or MP4 formats.
- RTF - Simple and to the point.
- HTML
Choose the format, include the required information, save it, and then add it to your main file's zip folder. Your project file along with the help file will be reviewed by our team, and if anything needs to be changed or added, they will get in touch with you.