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If I may change the direction of the thread, this is directly relevant to a
project that my employer is interested in. We want to maintain an on-line
knowledge base for our product. One of the requirements is that registered
users (customers) be able to contribute. Also, that my documentation, in
HTML5 format, be directly linked to and searchable from the same user
interface.
MadCap's forums use phpBB. Some folk here don't like the idea of any forum
software since past experience has shown that forums attract the interest
of hackers, or at least automated hacking tools. Kevin's comment about the
search feature in phpBB is also relevant. This doesn't mean that phpBB (or
similar forum software) is entirely out of the question, just that there is
a preference to look for a different solution.
So, if you were attempting to set up a knowledge base, what would you do?
On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 3:51 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin <
Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> Supposedly, one of the premiere authoring tools is MadCap Flare. It
> happens to be our weapon-of-choice, here at goode-olde-employer-inc.
> The primary means by which serious users find out how to do things in
> Flare is via MadCap's user forums.
> (Note, I did not say via their own Help, nor via mailing lists.)
>
> As it happens, the search engine provided by MadCap for people wanting to
> find stuff in their hosted forums has been a superlative example of an
> absolutely useless, utterly putrid piece of @#&p!
> Nobody I know of uses it. Anyone who finds useful info in those forums
> (and there's a lot of really good user-to-user assistance to be found) does
> it via external Google search.
>
> What's sad is that the company was built on Help, and they flog webserved
> help with a search engine.
>
> If the MadCap forum search isn't embarrassing to MadCap, it should be.
> But apparently they tolerate embarrassment really well, since the forum
> search has been a running joke for about as many years as I've been using
> the (pretty good) Flare product (i.e., since version 1.something).
>
> I don't know of a forums app/server that provides a really good search
> facility. Do you?
>
>
>
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Doc-To-Help: new website, content widgets, and an output that works on any screen.
