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Subject:Is RoboHelp bad for e-commerce? From:Ron Rhodes <RRhodes -at- fourthchannel -dot- com> To:"'TECHWR-L digest'" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 15 Nov 1999 12:34:40 -0500
Dear Tech-whirlers:
My company is an application service provider for companies who want to put
their catalogs on the WWW. And, I am having trouble convincing the
developers to use RoboHelp or DocToHelp for delivering online-help.
Their arguments actually seem to be pretty valid. Here are just a few points
the developers have made:
1. RoboHelp and DocToHelp do not use pure HTML (or XML), using WebHelp, to
compile the project.
2. The Table of Contents, Index, and Search tabs are served up as
client-side Java Applets in prior versions of Netscape and IE, thus creating
performance issues.
3. Cross-platform compatibility: Since these two products generate several
different file types, .htm, .css, .hss, etc, how can we know what will
happen if we put the end-result help files onto a UNIX box for an outside
client.
Right now, my company has me looking for other options to deliver on-line,
and I am not having a lot of luck.
Have any of you used RoboHelp or DocToHelp to deliver online help for
e-commerce companies. If so, how successful were you?
And, just out of curiosity, have any of you tried to use the WebHelp
compiler to link into an XML specific application? And, if so, how did it
go?
Thanks for all of your help.
Ron Rhodes -- Lead Technical Writer, fourthchannel, inc.
