RE: is there a best-of-breed in online Help??

["Brierley, Sean" <Sean -at- Quodata -dot- Com>]

I like Microsoft. Because Microsoft is almost everywhere, it's the standard
you get judged by. It is what people are used to, especially John Q. Public.

I like the look and feel of Microsoft's help wizards, the feel of the large
number of resources they obviously put into their help (staff and $$), and
the content is generally chunked pretty well. If I had a gripe, it is that
the information addresses the needs, mostly, of basic- to intermediate-level
users . . . but I've not seen a software company that addressed the audience
any better in their help.

Adobe, for example, suffers from such embarrassments as FrameMaker's online
help (thorough but . . . well . . . chekkit out ;?). RoboHelp through v6
(later?) had poor online help, too (useless and lacked a polished feel), and
Corel (through v7, I have v8/v9 stuff but don't use the help much any more)
had typos and so forth in a lot of their help.

I cannot speak for Mac- and Unix-based software, though. I've been in
Windoze for a long time, now. I admit, I'm not a big fan of that bubble-boy
 . . I mean bubble-help the Mac had.

Good question, though.

Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Skip Mendler [SMTP:wmendler -at- cornetltd -dot- com]
> 
> 
> Hi, folks -- just wondering, are there any commonly used software apps out
> there whose online Help systems are recognized by experts in such matters
> as
> being Really Exceptionally Good, and worthy of emulation?
> 
>