Re: Step-by-step instructions for a variable GUI?

[Sean Wheller <seanwhe -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

--- Jim Shaeffer <jims -at- spsi -dot- com> wrote:
> 
> How do you document step-by-step instructions for an
> ever-changing GUI? 

You can do this with conditional processing in XML. In
Docbook we have a number of common attributes that can
be used to specify various conditions. This mechanism
can also me extended to include custom attributes.

We then use a tool like Make to compiled the documents
required. A single make file can specify any number of
output formats. Sub to this you could have a book for
each OS (or compound a number of attributes to build
various permutations). In this manner you can even
maintain customer specific documents while also
keeping the generic (as shipped) version.

This can be further compounded to include support for
i10n, i18n and even Section 508.

Example: attributes would be os, revisionflag, arch,
condition, revision, security, userlevel, vendor etc.

Hope this helps.

Sean Wheller


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