Software recommendations

[David Spreadbury]

What is wrong with working in your current version of FrameMaker, which you
don't mention, so I am going to assume 7.2.

What is wrong with creating the PDFs straight out of FrameMaker?

Mif2Go can handle your online help problem. It produces several different
flavors of Online Help, from Windows Compiled HTML (CHM) to Oracle Help for
Java (cross-platform), to Omni Help (Web HTML Help), and the cost won't
break your budget. You can download and play with their eval version at
www.omsys.com.

As others have pointed out, you can, with a little work, manage the CMS part
manually.

David Spreadbury
Sr. Technical Writer


-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Roger
Shuttleworth
Sent: Monday, January 25, 2010 3:24 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: OT: Software recommendations

Hello All

I just started a new job at a software company whose product is very
GUI-intense. User assistance is crucial, and our legacy versions use online
Help that opens in a separate browser window. Management seem to be very
open to the idea of embedded help, etc. in upcoming versions, and they are
very serious about good UI design - so I'm hoping I'll be able to promote
embedded help in the future.

In the past the Help was  created in RoboHelp 7 and existed separately from
any PDF output, but in the future I can see us also creating well-designed
PDFs, single-sourcing the PDF and the Help, and maybe also training
materials. There will also be about four software packages with different
sets of features (so some form of inclusion/exclusion mechanism will be
needed.

I'm looking for recommendations as to which software package(s) to use. My
inclination is to get TCS2, single-source in FrameMaker, and then push to
RH. I'm pretty savvy with structured FM (though not v.9.0).

Before I leap for TCS2, I wonder if there are other possibilities. We do not
need XML as yet, though it may be a remote possibility down the road). I've
also thought about using XML and the DITA-OT, but the PDF output is probably
not good enough and there will be issues with file management in the absence
of a content management system.

Any suggestions will be welcome. Thanks for your help.

Roger

Roger Shuttleworth
Technical Documentation
AV-BASE Systems Inc.
1000 Air Ontario Drive, Suite 200
London, Ontario
N5V 3S4
Canada
Tel. 519 691-0919 ext. 320
rshuttleworth at avbasesystems.com