RE: Robohelp vs. Dreamweaver

["Neumann, Eileen" <ENeuman -at- franklintempleton -dot- ca>]

Thanks Ned.

I hadn't considered the version control problem - (I was focusing on the way word docs look kind of silly on the Web, and usability is lower). Seems to lock a doc, you must remember each doc's password? Disadvantage would be a need to manage the passwords. Advantage - version control.

And the version control feature of HTML would be that many users wouldn't know how to modify an html doc? Makes sense to me.

I've used Dreamweaver in my last job, and love it. Robohelp I haven't used, hence my question. It sounds like the chief benefit of Robohelp is that it can provide context sensitive help, which I think means that you can open help files from the software application that's being documented, instead of going to a separate website.

I know this is basic stuff, but I'm trying to get clarity for myself and my future recommendations to my group here. Hope someone will correct me if this is not correct.

Thanks also to those who responded to my question offline.

Eileen



 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ned Bedinger [mailto:doc -at- edwordsmith -dot- com]
Sent: Sunday, September 05, 2004 4:37 PM
To: techwr-L -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Cc: Neumann, Eileen
Subject: Re: Robohelp vs. Dreamweaver


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Neumann, Eileen" <ENeuman -at- franklintempleton -dot- ca>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 6:36 AM
Subject: Robohelp vs. Dreamweaver

Congratulations on your new job, it sounds interesting.  Good luck!

BTW, I'm sending this to the list at the new address, feel free to reply to
the list even if this reply doesn't show up there due to any techwr-l
address problems.

> is there something good that I don't know about in posting Word docs
online, vs.
> HTML?

No.  Providing live copies of documents is not exactly a good idea, in my
experience. Why?  Is it because Word has only a few features in common with
a dedicated web server and browser?  Well yeah, that's part of it :-)  But
more importantly is the fact that people who grab live documents off the
server will often save them, pull them out later and update them, all the
while still carrying your original document number, name, date, and other
identifying info.  Shocking is the word for how some doc users seem to lose
the ability to find the official current document online, once they have any
old version sitting on their desktop. If your teams are fiercely determined
to do things this way, you can mitigate the problem by putting prominent
document identifiers and the official release date on the title page, and a
List of Changes in the front matter--this helps stimulate awareness among
doc users.  You want them to be aware of your interest in versioning.  Be
prepared to lecture on the evils of have rogue/unofficial documents in
circulation..

Version control of documents is a perplexing problem that is aggravated by
having freely available live documents.  The real problems are rarely solved
by software and version control systems.  The key is to distribute documents
with the read-only attribute locked, and run an ongoing campaign to
sequester or eliminate copies of versions that have been superceded.  Not
much effort is involved in calling on all reviewers in person, to collect
back any extant review copies, and periodically broadcasting a request for
any soft or hard copies of old documents; doing so gives the issue some
exposure among your coworkers.  I also think that it is a great practice to
actively solicit the notes and changes that users have been making in the
margins of printed "working"  copies of these Word docs.  You shouldn't miss
the chance to xerox these as feedback for consolidation in the next update
cycle.


> Is Robohelp more useful for creating help files for software programs?
> What is each program good at?

Dreamweaver (nee Allaire Dreamweaver, acquired several years ago by
Macromedia) excels as an environment for creating new web sites--the
interface gives you pretty good WYSIWIG design tools and easy access for
defining and using styles and style sheets.  Over the long haul, Dreamweaver
gives you the range of tools needed to focus your web development efforts on
scripts, server-side includes, and other such back side functions.  These
automate the work done by the server in delivering dynamic web pages on the
fly.

Robo, I've been told, is as easy as Word to use.  The help files it produces
are HTML help, and if I am remembering what I heard correctly, it can also
do
create classic WinHelp files.  HTMLHelp was originally touted for its
ability to serve up individual pages from a help system, instead of needing
the entire Help file open, as WinHelp did.  This was important because
remote applications would take a long time to display hWinHelp topics over a
slow network connection.

You can publish just about anything as a help file, of course.  You don't
get a lot of tools to work with in HTML Help, but when I last used (beta of
the first release by Blue Sky, sorry!) you could generate a table of
contents from document headings, open secondary windows, and use "popup"
windows that repond to events (like hovering the mouse over a word to show
the definition).  Software help files are pretty much the problem that HTML
Help and tools like Robo were designed to solve.

> Eileen Neumann
> Business Rules & Procedures Specialist

Cheers.

Ned Bedinger
Ed Wordsmith Technical Communications


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