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re: Options for non-proprietary XML/HTML-based help
Subject:re: Options for non-proprietary XML/HTML-based help From:Sean Hower <hokumhome -at- freehomepage -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 4 May 2005 07:14:33 -0700 (PDT)
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Janice Manwiller writes:
One of our "would really like to have" requirements is that our customers could customize/localize the help.
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Admirable.
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Customers are able to change the application text simply by editing a resource file, but the help does not keep up with those changes, and it doesn't seem advisable to edit generated WebHelp.
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Perhaps, then, you are approaching your help in the wrong way. If the interface is so customizable, and your customers are customizing that interface, then what is the purpose of the documentation? Maybe you should look at delivering form-level help that describes basic purpose and features, and then provide context-sensitive help for specific fields. You could get with your engineers to work out a way to deliver the c-s help in, say, a Web page, and have that page easily accessible and editable, as most Web pages are. This way, you would be maintaining essentially two sets of information, one that was static (I'm assuming users can't customize the application to the point that the form's general purpose and use no longer applies) and another for individual fields that can be changed.
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I could just give customers the source project and tell them to use
whatever tool we used to generate it, but I'd prefer to not force customers to buy an expensive help authoring tool when they can basically use Notepad to customize the application.
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HTMLHelp Workshop is a free download on Windows.
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So would anyone (online or offline) be willing to talk about how they have created a browser-based help system without using an expensive tool? How does it handle:
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Hey, if you find out, let me know. I'm currently using DocBook and attempting to figure out an easy-to-install-and-maintain process for generating Web Help from DocBook source. Sure, it's easy to generate HTMLHelp and JavaHelp, and even chunked pages, but I haven't been able to find something that will generate Web help with the kinds of features you get out of RoboHelp......then again, I've only started looking. You should check out Source Forge and see if there is something there.
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