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"Vlad Dracul" <vladvampiredracul -at- hotmail -dot- com> wrote in message news:220449 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
>
> My employer uses RoboHelp to generate WebHelp. Unfortunately, we find that
> WebHelp is too heavy for our thin-client model.
>
> Does anybody know how to optimize WebHelp? For example, are there portions
> of code that can be deleted? Is there any automatic process for such
> deletion?
>
> Pointers in this regard would be appreciated.
>
Some suggestions:
For authoring, use anything--anything!--other than the built-in editor.
RoboHelp adds a plethora of tags to HTML files when it opens them in the
built-in editor. (eHelp claims that's so they display correctly, but, funny,
other HTML editors don't need such crutches.) Most notably, the infamous
kadov tags, oodles and oodles of inline styles (instead of basic tagging),
and unneeded nested tags (such as P tags within LI tags, then with added
styles to make them appear like LI tags should normally). Lots of unneeded
comments as well. Then scrub, scrub, scrub. I found I can cut file size in
about half.
Then, never, ever, open a topic in the RoboHelp built-in editor, else you
have to spend time re-cleaning the HTML.
If you're client is Internet Explorer only, don't use the Java applet for
the Navigation pane. That adds a tremendous amount of overhead (and if
you're using one of the newer releases of Java, some default configurations
of the Java Runtime Engine will result in slowing down tremendously the
startup of Java.)
I use Dreamweaver MX as my editor. A lot of the unneeded taggging can be
done automatically by using the site-wide search and replace in code. But
not all, especially SPAN tags that have to be replaced by their equivalents.
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
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