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Subject:Re: Windows Help authoring tools From:Matthew Wong <wong -at- ACEC -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 23 Feb 1994 09:36:11 PST
On Tue, 22 Feb 1994 18:13:47 PST Faith Weber wrote:
> For anyone else who writes Windows Help, what (in your opinion) are
> the pros and cons of using a tool as opposed to straight WinWord? I'm
> especially interested in hearing from folks who've had to update their
> help files one or more times.
Faith,
We recently started developing the Windows Help utility. Before we started
development, we had to resolve the same issues that you are now
considering. The upshot of the endeavor was that we decided to use
RoboHelp 2.0 for our Windows Help development. The reasons for this
decision was this:
* Coding topics files without a tool is time consuming: adding the control
codes for each topic, creating unique context strings and correctly typing
these strings--these tasks are automated with a tool.
* tools let you automatically create of topics and project files, and compile
of the Help utility all within the same development enviornment. This
characteristic reduces the learning curve associated with learning the
mechanics of developing Windows Help.
* The large size of the Help for our system almost mandates the use of a
tool.
