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> 1. This is the second official MS position on the subject in as many
> months. That's what "this supersedes all previous announcements" means.
Correct.
> 2. Vista is a minimum of nine months away, maybe more. MS has plenty of
> time to change their minds again, and again, about releasing the WinHelp
> downloadable.
"Ted Dworkin (Director of Windows Support Experience) told MVPs —
WinHelp does not meet the code standards established for Vista. These
standards include security, reliability, and performance. WinHelp is
architected in such a way that we would have to rewrite it from the
ground up to meet the Vista code standards. And that approach doesn't
make sense given that we have two other Help systems in Vista."
> 3. For most of us, moving a project away from WinHelp is a matter of
> days, not months. Why spend the time and money right now on
> uncertainties?
Paul's already explained this. For many folks, it's not just a click
to publish to a different format. It requires changes to the
application, which then expands to include QA.
> 4. I've seen a hundred posts that RoboHelp is dead, dead, absolutely
> dead, deader than a doornail. Now, a new post says, "RoboHelp lives, but
> WinHelp is dead." Hmmm.
Most of us went with "RoboHelp has no future", not "RoboHelp is dead".
Adobe has decided that RoboHelp has a future...with the earliest
possible release slated for sometime in 2007. That doesn't help folks
who have already moved to a different tool because they had to make a
change, or those who are already considering a change. (And if it is
released during that time frame, it means that it will have been more
than two and a half years since X5 was originally released.)
I talked to one group several months ago who had to make a decision
quickly because of their development cycles...if they didn't make a
change by a certain date, they wouldn't be able to visit this again
for over a year.
Char James-Tanny ~ JTF Associates, Inc. ~ http://www.helpstuff.com
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Please send follow-up questions to the list.
Contact me directly (CharJT at helpstuff dot com) with business inquiries.
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2005-2006 Microsoft Help MVP ~ MSHelpWiki http://www.mshelpwiki.com
AuthorIT Certified Consultant, Development, and Training
Moderator, HATT and MSHelp2
Incoming Secretary, Society of Technical Communication
STC Online Information SIG: Online Help Lead
Web site Hosting and Design ~ http://www.jtfhosting.com
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