Re: Help for multiple applications?

[Brian Gordon <elasticsoul2003 -at- yahoo -dot- ca>]

----- Original Message ----
<<However, because some of these applications are sold as independent 
products, we also intend on using Conditional tags to allow access to 
only relevant Help files for that application.>>

From: Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>
I've got serious reservations about this approach. It makes good 
theoretical sense, but it can be appallingly complex to resolve all the 
dependencies. For example, where products share a help topic, there 
will be cross-references to that topic scattered throughout the help 
system. How can you tell that these cross-references will be valid for 
all products? The link-checking tool in your authoring software will 
help, but it's still going to take considerable human supervision: you 
have to check the links for each of five possible builds of the help 
system, and that's no picnic.



*******************
Brian here
Is this the sort of problem that is solved with tools like AuthorIT? I've used the latter to create and publish help files for different products, where the products share some information. Unless I'm misunderstanding what the OP is trying to do (and Geoff's response)...

All the best,
Brian


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