Trends in Help authoring?

[Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca>]

Daniel Gallagher wondered: <<Is it correct to assume that today's 
version of winhelp will be dead in the water soon?>>

"Soon" is awfully relative. WinHelp has been officially replaced by 
HTMLHelp for more than 2 years now (longer?), yet you'll still see it 
here and there. I've stuck with WinHelp thus far because I've yet to 
see an HTMLHelp implementation that I found equally usable; in 
particular, HTMLHelp indexes suck badly, and the help browser always 
seems to take far longer to launch than WinHelp's browser. But as of 
Windows XP, WinHelp still works just fine, both as a technology for 
compiling help and as a technology for displaying help.

<<I know my HAT (Help Authoring Tool) will need to change after MS 
eventually changes their help compiler.>>

Not necessarily. So long as the compiler continues to work, and so long 
as your HAT vendor keeps selling copies of the old WinHelp software, 
you're doing fine. Haven't heard any rumors yet that either situation 
is going to end soon.

<<But my main concern is if winhelp is disappearing altogether and if I 
should be concentrating on learning html based help (wave of the 
future?)?>>

I've steadfastly avoided using HTMLHelp until this year, but my main 
client has now insisted that I at least test out the technology to see 
whether it meets their needs. The end result will inevitably be that 
I'm going to have to shelve RoboHelp and start using RoboHTML. I expect 
to make heavy use of techwr-l's expertise in the coming month.

<<The software people here don't care how I make the help, as long as 
the customer can press F1 at any time and invoke some help. They can 
reference to my help whether it's winhelp orhtml based right?>>

You can use either format for as long as your programmers are willing 
to work with you to map the Map IDs to the correct parts of the 
software. My question to my client has always been: "What advantage 
does HTMLHelp offer?" The answer thus far (in my opinion) has always 
been "none, but it sure is trendy". Yesterday, the answer became 
"because we like HTMLHelp and we're paying the bill, so deal with it". 
Can't really argue with that, can I? <g>

<<now I simply know how to use the HAT only (ForeHelp 5), I don't know 
the process of it all.>>

One way to do the job simply and inexpensively is to create a linked 
series of Web pages (HTML files), just as if you were creating a Web 
site. Microsoft's HTML Help Workshop (something like that... haven't 
gone looking for it yet so I'm not up on the actual name) apparently 
does a credible job of stitching the Web site into a single .CHM file, 
though the tools for indexing the resulting pages are somewhat 
primitive. But it does work.

Over the next few weeks, my job will be to develop an efficient and 
bug-free process for creating source text in Word (for review and 
revision) and using that text to create an HTMLHelp system that can be 
updated by simply updating the Word source files and recompiling. Not 
sure that's possible, but here's hoping! Advice from techwr-l welcomed, 
and I'll eventually post a summary of what I've found to work so others 
can benefit.

--Geoff Hart   ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca
(try geoffhart -at- mac -dot- com if you don't get a reply)


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

ROBOHELP FOR FRAMEMAKER AS LOW AS $299! Offer expires March 31.
Publish your FrameMaker documents online -- quickly and easily!
                                                                               
New licenses are only $899 for one and $499 for additional licenses.
Use a competitor's product? Switch to RoboHelp for FrameMaker
for only $299! Buy today: CALL 1-800-462-4420 or 1 858-847-7900.
Hurry, offer expires March 31 2004.


---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archiver -at- techwr-l -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.