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:FrameMaker and Online Help From:Harold Henke <hessian -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 12 Jan 1995 16:20:57 MST
I am not a FrameMaker expert but I believe if you are using FrameViewer
you could use your existing documentation to provide a quick set of
online help. You would do this by:
When a user requests help, you could, "under the covers", start
FrameViewer and send the user to a specific piece of text in your
online document.
Or there is an FrameViewer API that your developers could use to
integrate your online information into the online help. According to
a FrameViewer advertisement, a company called Rational has done this.
I am sure a FrameMaker marketing representative could tell you more.
(As an aside, I have used Interleaf and IBM's InfoExplorer to provide online
help. This was done by a user selecting help and we then started InfoExplorer
and took the user to the help they requested. From there, the user minimized
the InfoExplorer application and went back to the task at hand. Of course
a drawback to this method is you have to start another application to
provide online help, which can slow up a system.)
