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Brett Peruzzi wrote:
>
> Techwhirlers:
>
> One of my writers is working on a Winhelp project for an application
> that may be customized for specific clients. She and the developer
> have been speculating on how best to produce the customized help
> without a lot of redundant effort.
>
> What they're considering is creating separate help files for each area
> of product functionality, so they can choose which help files match
> the product features the specific client needs. These separate help
> files will then be combined and compiled together to produce a single
> help file. Kind of an object-oriented approach, with an emphasis on
> information re-usability.
>
> Has anyone done this, and if you have, what advice can you offer?
> We're using Doc-to-Help 1.6 as our authoring tool, by the way.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brett Peruzzi
> Documentation Manager
> First Data Investor Services Group
> Boston, MA
> Brett -dot- Peruzzi -at- fdc-invest -dot- com
Brett,
I've worked on several projects like this, and I've used several different
approaches.
What we found worked best, where we were able, is to have separate help files,
with interfile jumps. This permitted the best "link preservation" and allowed
the individual developers to work at their own pace. Got to keep good track of
those links though... Big topic/link spreadsheets... Also, if you have context
sensitivity within the applications... then you've got to get s/w developer's
buyoff on it. That can be a little tougher... depending upon what they're
developing in (Visual C++, VB, Powerbuilder, etc.).
We used RoboHelp and as our WHAT for those projects.
cheers,
--
************************************************************
Bill Bledsoe
Technical Communicator
St. Louis, MO
bill -at- envision -dot- com or intlidox -at- anet-stl -dot- com
webmaster: St. Louis Chapter - STC <www.stc.org/region6/stl>
Envision <www.envision.com>
"The Internet is the first thing that
humanity has built that humanity doesn't
understand," Eric Schmidt, CTO Sun 10/18/96
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