Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help

[Sean Wheller <seanwhe -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

David Knopf wrote:
> Most people I've worked with who've spent a good
deal of time working
> with both Epic and Structured FrameMaker would
choose the latter over
> the former in a heartbeat.

<sidebar>Uh Hummm!!! You mean the most that find it
difficult to relinquish
the presentation layer.</sidebar>

The whole point of working in XML is that the content
and presentation
layers are seperate. Frame is a DTP tool, from my
perspective it is
therefore concerned with presentation. Authors have
also become partial to
using Frame was word processor. In my books using
Frame for the later
purpose, in an XML Publishing Tool Chain, defeats the
purpose of working in
XML.

XML is True Single-source and Frame is WYSIWYG.
Both are on opposite ends of the same stick. If you
try to bring them
together by bending the stick, it is bound to break at
some point.

The tension limit, before the stick breaks, is WYSIOO
(What You See Is One
Option). As WYSIWYG, Frame goes beyond the tension
limit and breaks the
stick. Epic is WYSIOO, in my school, this does not
break the stick and
therefore is an infinatley better option.

Leading Document Orientated XML Editors such as Epic,
XXE, XMetal, Morphon,
and Syntext have all shown that WYSIWOO is the "best
practice".

The pradgim of authoring in a WYSIWYG environment and
then exporting to XML
is broken and in my option should not be employed in
any information
development cycle where XML is employed as the storage
format. XML, as many
have already said, is for exchange. The point of using
XML in the
information development cycle is to avoid lock-in at
the presentation layer
through the use of an open and standards based format.
This format should be
transformable to any presentation (formatted) target.

I don't know much about Frame, so please correct me if
I am wrong. But I
understand that a Frame template cannot be saved as an
XSL that could be
used, by any XML Publishing Tool Chain, to transform
an XML to a formatted
target such as HTML or XSL-FO.

If Frame could do this then it would be of tremendous
value in a publishing
cycle that uses XML during the information development
cycle. As I
understand the current Frame technology, it is unable
to do so. The
technology is limited to  defining or controlling the
design of content,
stored in a proprietry format, and then outputting it
to a formatted target
capable of being displayed by a viewer technology.

Once a MIF is created and the layout, style etc are
defined, any change to
the content source will require that the MIF be
modified in order to
compensate for those changes. Whereas with XSL the
transformation to the
presentation format dynamically compenates for
modifications of the source.

<sidebar>Just out of interest, Docbook - The Defintive
Guide, was written in
XML and then transformed to MIF using a Jade
stylesheet.</sidebar>

African greetings,

Sean Wheller



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