RE: What would replace WebHelp?

["McLauchlan, Kevin" <Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

> From: vwritert -at- gmail -dot- com [mailto:vwritert -at- gmail -dot- com] On Behalf Of John G

> I have been using Dreamweaver to create Help since 2001 ... if it can be done in HTML, it can be done using Dreamweaver.

> It satisfies all of your criteria except maybe the last one - I don't and won't use frames, so not sure about that.

> Using DW allows you virtually infinite creativity ...  think of a help system as a help web instead of Web Help.

> My 2¢,


I came from a mostly FrameMaker background, creating PDF docsets, 
and only fell into WebHelp about 7 years ago when our little 
company was bought by a bigger company that did WebHelp using 
RoboHelp. 

Shortly after, they/we were bought by a bigger company that 
let the divisions continue whatever documentation types and 
tools they'd been using. When RoboHelp began looking like 
it was abandoned, I switched to Flare - which also became 
the standard non-Word tool for the company. 

So I have no background with Dreamweaver or other 
general-purpose site/page tool for creating help. 
I've used Compozer and other tools to create and re-work 
web pages (along with Blue Griffon and some others, 
and good old Notepad++), but it's not the same of course. 

Anyway, the important part of the criterion that you 
mention was not that it used frames, but that it 
gave the user a decent suite of navigation tools, 
including ToC, Search, linked Glossary, Index, breadcrumbs, 
etc... and that it did so without need for a server. 

No doubt DreamWeaver lets you do all that with your 
eyes closed, but since I already had a company-paid 
tool, I haven't needed to learn DreamWeaver. 
Might be worth a look, though.

Do you have a public example someplace that I could 
look at? 

Published output has to live on customer's local drive, 
and be accessible offline whether they are using Windows, 
Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, or AIX computers.
You copy a bunch of files to your computer (or just 
pop in the DVD and cd to that drive) and you double-click 
one file (say, for example, "startpage.htm"), and your 
default browser opens a comprehensive help system. 
For bonus points, it could also be tied into a 
GUI application for context sensitivity, but standalone 
is the primary need right now. No server. 

 - kevin

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