MadCap Flare

[Callie Bertsche]

Thank you. It's good caution. 
My hangup with TCS was forums like this one:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=65&
catid=680&threadid=1392783&enterthread=y where multiple users have
trouble integrating FM 8 with RH 7.
 
Do you use FM as authoring source to generate help? Have you similarly
evaluated Robohelp 7? Not challenging your assessment! Just looking for
additional info. :) My dream for our help bundle is generation from a
script in our nightly product build, which would negate the need for any
personal postprocessing.
Callie
 


________________________________

	From: Fred Ridder [mailto:docudoc at hotmail.com] 
	Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 9:07 AM
	To: Callie Bertsche
	Subject: RE: MadCap Flare
	
	
	If I were making the decision and retaining FrameMaker as the 
	primary authoring tool is an objective, I'd be considering the
	Adobe Technical Communications Suite rather than Flare. 
	Based on my participation in the Flare beta program, I think
	its biggest virtues come if you are using it as its own
authoring
	tool (treating it as an IDE, which is how they architected it) 
	rather than trying to use it as an output conversion tool for 
	some other autoring tool (e.g. Word or FrameMaker). The 
	Adobe TCS achieves live linkage between FrameMaker source
	files and RoboHelp so that one a project is fully set up, you 
	do all your updates in Frame and then simply regenerate the
	help without having to do any significant pre- or
post-processing. 
	
	
	
	> Subject: MadCap Flare
	> Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:42:37 -0700
	> From: c.bertsche at tecplot.com
	> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
	> 
	> Hi Framers, 
	> Due to frustration using ePublisher Pro and the coding
learning curve of
	> Mif2Go, we are seriously considering switching help generation
software
	> to MadCap Flare. I know I've generated chatter about this
before, so I'm
	> sorry if this feels repetitive; but can I get any more input
from anyone
	> who uses Flare with FrameMaker (7.2) to generate extensive
	> single-sourced material? More words of caution or advice? I've
evaluated
	> the software to a fair extent and it seems capable; I'm really
excited
	> that it can generate help from the command line. But because
it's a
	> younger product, I would really value any more input from
others who
	> have taken the plunge.
	> 
	> I generate thousands of pages into about 22 manuals and 3
online help
	> bundles. Currently ePP 9.1, Frame 7.2, WebWorks help output.
My primary
	> concern in upgrading to the newer ePP was the glitch where it
randomly
	> skips filename markers in the output, leaving me without
random pages
	> that I need (I've heard that they've fixed it, but I've also
heard that
	> it didn't work for at least one user), as well as the glee
that
	> producing help from the command line would give me.
	> 
	> Cheers,
	> Callie
	>