Re: Whatever happened to...??

["Jane Bergen" <jane -dot- bergen -at- usa -dot- net>]

I think a lot of us fall in between these two ends, traditional WinHelp vs
HTML/web page. My company, a medium-size telco, is still working on a
16-bit app, which means I am limited to (gasp!) WinHelp 3.1!! It gags me
every day. We do have plans to start 32-bit development for the next major
release, but in the meantime I'm stuck.

On the other hand, I have not found straight-up web pages to be very
helpful at all for delivering help with learning a new software program.
They have their niche, such as troubleshooting FAQs, etc. but it takes a
lot more effort to navigate and search than a context-sensitive online
help file. We have monthly lunch meetings in Dallas, Texas (no
organization, just open to any tech writers) and this month I asked the
question about what kind of help systems everyone was producing. The
overwhelming response was WinHelp, with a few HTMLHelp...no bleeding edge
stuff from anyone.

So...my point is that I think we ARE moving to web-based help, but it will
be down the road. In the meantime, I hope someone, somewhere is working on
some kind of an improved delivery system that will take the best of all
worlds and give the users context-sensitive help, helpful visual cues,
ease of navigation, and pop-up windows for definitions. Also in the
meantime, I am going to start playing around with HTML code and
javascript, since that seems to be one strong direction I see happening
currently.

I need my first cup of coffee .....

Jane Bergen

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Posada" <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 8:22 AM
Subject: RE: Whatever happened to...??


> I was speaking in terms that people assume when they hear online help
> vs html.
>
> Maybe it is because we like to assign names to something that also
> has another name. Would online help developers be more comfortable
> being called webmasters? As long as we differenciate between POW
> (Plain Old Web - for those in the telecom filed, you have POT [plain
> old telephone]) and online help, then we'll wonder where online help
> developers went. However...if we become web masters, then
> opportunities will open for us because there are way more webs than
> helps and since the skill is transferable, opportunities will expand.