OT: Any opinions on creating online help?

[Joseph Lorenzini]

Hi Gay,

It depends on what exactly you are looking to do, the level of quality you
expect, and the output that you need the help system to be in. It also
depends on what software you currently have. I am assuming your criteria is
1) inexpensive and 2) low learning curve 3) can generate a help system from
FrameMaker books.

So if you have the technical communication suite, then your best is to
import FrameMaker books into RoboHelp. Its the cheapest solution since its
already provided to you out of the box and as long as you have a basic
understanding of CSS and HTML the learning curve isn't too bad. Now with
that said, there is some incredibly annoying gotchas in TCS 2.0 (don't even
get me started on the horrible job it does handling numbering). I have been
making help systems this way for about 2 years and I can walk you through
the process if you want.

If you don't have TCS and need to purchase help system solution, then I
don't think you can beat mif2go. I don't have a lot of experience with this
but its 1) been around forever 2) its dirt cheap compared to other tools out
there 3)it produces excellent help output and 4) people who use it swear by
it. The one downside is the learning curve could be considered somewhat
steep. Its all based on setting up configuration files and its not really
GUI based. You can get a demo version to test for yourself.

http://www.omsys.com/dcl/mif2gopg.htm

The other big one I have heard of but have not used personally myself is
madcap flare. I've seen mixed reviews on this one. Some people say its the
best things since sliced bread. Others says it has a steep learning curve
and does not produce the best results. I have no experience with the product
so I can't give you an opinion on that one way or the other.

http://www.madcapsoftware.com/products/flare/overview.aspx#introduction

There are other solutions out there but that gets into using structured
FrameMaker authoring and enterprise XML solutions. This gets very pricey
very quickly and usually has a very steep learning curve so I won't get into
those here.

Hope that helps.

Sincerely,
Joseph Lorenzini
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