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RE: Duck! A context-sensitive help tools question...
Subject:RE: Duck! A context-sensitive help tools question... From:"Bill Swallow" <wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 21 Aug 2002 00:37:01 -0400
::: I really don't want to (re)start another tool war... But I
::: am evaluating
::: tools at the moment and would appreciate any second
::: opinions, on or offline,
::: concerning the relative pros and cons of RoboHELP 2002 and WebWorks
::: Publisher 7 (Standard or Professional ed.) for creating HTML Help.
You can't create HTML Help with WWP Standard, so that narrows it down to
two. *lol*
::: Specifically, I want to provide code programming as
::: context-sensitive Help
::: within Microsoft Visual Studio applications, e.g. Visual Basic. I've
::: produced proof-of-concept files with R'Help 2002 already
::: and am moving on to
::: try and do the same the same with WWP 7. I know the latter
::: has a steeper
::: learning curve, but that won't bother me if the tool delivers.
Steeper depending on how you're used to working.
::: My main concerns are
::: (i) how effective the tools are at delivering multiple types of
::: documentation -- for example, how well R'Help 2002 handles
::: prinitable books,
::: how well WWP handles context-sensitive Help
I would say that WWP handles CS Help much better than RH handles
printable docs. I would also say that the previous sentence is a big
underatatement. *vbg*
::: (ii) does the overhead for developers differ from too to
::: tool, vis a vis
::: updating the code with help tags
It shouldn't. A topic ID is a topic ID.
::: (iii) general pros and cons
You building an ark? *rofl*
::: At the moment I'm producing docs as PDF with Frame +
::: Acrobat and RoboHELP
::: Office version 7. Strictly speaking I could use RH 7 to produce the
::: programming documentation but we've been decided to update
::: our tools. Lucky
::: me, I think.
My suggestion is to get a WWP Pro trial license and go to town on one
smaller document. Really spend the (limited) time getting into WWP and
trying things out. I believe you have 15 days from time of install to
try out the software - I suggest you block out at least a couple of days
for tinkering and testing.
My opinion is that if you are autoring in FM, it's a no-brainer when
choosing between RH and WWP. WWP is the far better tool given that
workflow.
B I L L S W A L L O W
Information Design & Development Professional
tel/fax: 518.371.1867 wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com
List Owner: HATT, WWP-Users, InFrame
Co-Moderator: SingleSourcing-Mgmt
WebWorks Wizard Editor of InFrame Magazine
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