OT: Any opinions on creating online help?

[Art Campbell]

I'd second Joseph's assessment.

I use both RH as part of the TCS and MIF2Go -- RH produces nicer
looking files more quickly because it has nice templates, but MIF2Go
is much more stable and bulletproof.

Art Campbell
               art.campbell at gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
                                                      No disclaimers apply.
                                                               DoD 358



On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Joseph Lorenzini
<panopticon23 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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