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Subject:RE: Hosted Help - server specs? From:"Robart, Kay" <Kay -dot- Robart -at- tea -dot- state -dot- tx -dot- us> To:Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com>, techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 4 Dec 2013 20:25:33 +0000
We deliver our Help as WebHelp but to the server where our application is located. Customers have access through our security application from the applications or just on our web site for public applications.
I don't know any down sides except that there are a lot of files to work with, but that's a very small issue. We will sometimes generate a .chm file of the Help just so we can easily give it to internal users who want to look at it without logging in to the application.
The Help can be delivered to the server separately or with the application, depending upon whether the developer is doing a release for the app or not. The files just need to be copied to the correct directory on the server.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+kay -dot- robart=tea -dot- state -dot- tx -dot- us -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+kay -dot- robart=tea -dot- state -dot- tx -dot- us -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf Of Hannah Drake
Sent: Wednesday, December 04, 2013 1:54 PM
To: Julie Stickler; techwr-l
Subject: Re: Hosted Help - server specs?
We do, because of the first issue I mentioned -- half of our customers are online, half aren't (they don't have to be for some of our products) and some have very conservative IT people who don't like programs accessing the internet.
CHMs seem easier to package than webhelp. But maybe there is something I don't know? It was the format they used when I got here in Jan, and I'm a newb to TW tools. I also assumed webhelp was meant to be hosted on a website.
However, we are kicking around the idea of producing webhelp for at least one of our products (I also use Flare).
Hannah L. Drake
On 12/4/2013 2:49:24 PM, Julie Stickler <jstickler -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
Also I find it kind of interesting that you talk about "the traditional CHM" as backup.
I've been a technical writer for over a dozen years now, and I've never produced a CHM file. I've always produced some flavor of WebHelp. Are people still producing CHM files? (not to derail my own topic, but I'm curious).
On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Hannah Drake wrote:
> 1) Are all of your customers hooked up to the Internet? any
> high-security customers? These kinds of things can cause hosted "help" problems.
> 2) Most companies that have online help also do the traditional CHM as
> a backup, so you can't completely get rid of in-product help.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 1:31 PM, Julie Stickler wrote:
>
>> I've had several requests from various product managers about moving
from
>> having our Help files built into the product to having our Help and
>> documentation hosted on a Web site somewhere. I'd love to make this
>> change, because Release Notes are always changing up to the very last
>> minute, and then we have to rebuild the installer and run through the
>> QA test suite again. Decoupling the doc deliver from the builds would
>> have so many benefits for not just our process, but would allow me to
>> make doc updates as needed (vs. on the release schedule).
>>
>> I've got several ideas about how to go about this, but before I head
down
>> to talk to IT about getting server space, I thought I'd tap the
collective
>> brain power of TechWrl and see if there's anything I haven't thought
>> of, or good advice from the TW brain trust.
>>
>> Anyone made the move to Hosted docs? Have any lessons learned to share?
>> Success stories? Horror stories? Stuff you wish you'd done differently?
>>
>>
>> --
>> Julie Stickler
>> http://heratech.wordpress.com/
>> Blogging about Agile and technical writing
>>
>>
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> New! Doc-to-Help 2013 features the industry's first HTML5 editor for
>> authoring.
>>
>> Learn more: http://bit.ly/ZeOZeQ
>>
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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>
>
>
> --
> Hannah L. Drake
> Lead Technical Documentation Specialist Formulatrix, Inc.
>
> 781-788-0228 x137 (office)
> 617-610-6456 (cell)
> hannah.drake.formulatrix (skype)
>
