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Linux users' expectations of online help

Subject: Linux users' expectations of online help
From: Jean Hollis Weber <jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:43:57 +1000


In August I wrote to the HATT (help authoring tools and techniques) list asking whether anyone knew of any HAT that runs on Linux. As part of the conversation, one respondent commented:

Unless you want to code your own help module which is
linked to the main application, you are limited to
web-based help and/or man pages when using Linux.
To expect to get a help application comparable to the
output of Windows HATs is unrealistic at this point,
mainly because Linux caters to a different audience
than Windows does. Most Linux users are perfectly
happy reading man pages or looking at Web-based help
manuals, so the open source movement has not felt the
need to created Window-like HATs.

This got me thinking about several things.
First and most important, although the audience for open source apps has traditionally been Linux users, and Linux users are traditionally more "geeky" than Windows users, I think this is changing rapidly. Some open source apps (such as OpenOffice.org) are targeting Windows users (and those who purchase Windows-based apps), encouraging them to change to open source and Linux. Some big organisations are already making the change.

To me this means that thousands of former Windows users will be bringing their expectations to Linux-based apps. I would assume that at least some of the open-source developers (and those who are developing commercial apps for Linux) will eventually recognise, if they haven't already, that they need to provide task-oriented online help as well as the function-oriented help I often see -- and that they need to provide good indexes, tutorials, and other features that Windows users are more accustomed to.

I'd be interested in your perceptions, opinions, and experiences.

Secondly, the quoted message seems to imply that "web-based help" (by which I think is meant "HTML-based help") is not "a help app comparable to the output of Windows HATs."
Certainly that sort of help is created by most Windows-based HATs today, and can contain some advanced features. My original question could be restated as: are there any tools (that run on Linux) available that can produce comparable HTML-based help? (Someone sent some info about a tool for producing tutorials using something called Linux Viewlets, which sound interesting but a bit more ambitious than what I have in mind.)

And yes, I do know about DocBook, which sounds rather formidable and not very user-friendly for the help author.

I would appreciate a direct copy of any response that goes to this list. Thanks!

Regards, Jean
Jean Hollis Weber
jean -at- jeanweber -dot- com
The Technical Editors' Eyrie http://www.jeanweber.com/


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