Documenting two similar interfaces

["Sarah Blake" <Sarah -dot- Blake -at- microfocus -dot- com>]

To save me reinventing the wheel...

I'm currently working on a project where we're upgrading the UI to use a
new 'ribbon'-style interface (a la MS Word), but users will also have
the option to use the familiar 'classic' interface.  The documentation
will therefore need to deal with both.

I'm not sure which of these will be the default; I suspect the ribbon
interface, but I don't know for certain.  And while the placement of
functions within menus is similar between the two, it's not identical.

At the moment, I'm looking at basically doing the following:

1. From Furniture > Hatstand (or Interior > Furniture > Hatstand if
using the Classic interface)

...but the help is the approximate size of War and Peace, and giving
double directions for each task seems a bit cumbersome, especially when
(as seems inevitable) I'm going to have to go back through in a couple
of releases' time, removing one set.

If I have to, then I have to, but does anyone else who's gone through
this process have any tips or suggestions?  (The documentation format is
CHM, created from XML source files.)


Sarah Blake
Senior Technical Author
Micro Focus

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