TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Multiplatform docs From:Ruth-Ellen Flanagan <flanagan -at- TVDRS -dot- ENET -dot- DEC -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 26 May 1994 09:55:17 EDT
Hi,
If you know someone or have a copy of the 1994 STC Annual Conference
Proceedings, you can read my paper about creating multiplatform doc
sets. It doesn't talk about online help - that will be part 2.
Of course, SGML is supposed to be the answer to handling all of this
multiplatform stuff... but the tools aren't there yet whereby you can
actually accomplish getting multiple outputs from the same source
file (IMO).
In response to your questions:
>>>1 Continue producing the paper stuff in Microsoft Word. Does this
have any sort of version control at 6.0 to pull together the texts
required for different versions?
Do you mean conditionalizing? If you do, then no Word does not have
that feature. I big deficiency in my book (along with several others
that I won't go into).
I am not familiar with OS/2 and so don't know how different it is from
Windows and Windows NT. You could consider books that include
information about both platforms (FrameMaker 4.0's user's guide talks
about Windows and Macs in the same manual). This would depend on how
much information is different.
Of course you would want to influence the UI design so that the
differences are as minimal as possible :-).
>>>2 Produce on-line help using one of the nice tools like Forehelp ->
give Windows help. Probably pull in some of the reference stuff from the
Word for Windows documents.
Then use HDK to convert the windows help to the HDK common format,
and use HDK again to generate the OS/2 help format
This path would make sense. Doc-To-Help lets you create help files and
hardcopy from the same source file (Doc-To-Help lets you
conditionalize for hardcopy and online - so you could use this feature
to make different online help and hardcopy and share some of the
text). However, you are still stuck if you need to make platform
specific manuals from the same source files.
And for those of you who also need help for UNIX systems, there is
Hyperhelp from Bristol Technologies. It converts Windows Help files.
>>>What I'm also wondering is whether I'd be better off using the Microsoft
Viewer product rather than the standard Windows help engine. I've been
hearing something about Windows 4.0 and NT perhaps using the Viewer
engine - anyone able to confirm/deny this?
I don't think Microsoft is committing to an answer about whether
the Viewer is going to replace the Windows Help engine yet. Lots of us
are waiting for this decision.
