Choosing a Help Format

[jackdeland at comcast.net]

AIRHelp as I used it a few years ago was not viable for users who had no Internet access; the .exe file looks for an update whenever it is launched. You'd be surprised how many users are out there without 'net access, especially govt and govt contractors. There may be a way to make it behave now. I've given up on it. 

----- Original Message -----

From: "Fei Min Lorente" <FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com> 
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com 
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 2:10:53 PM 
Subject: RE: Choosing a Help Format 

We're using C# in Visual Studio. 

It's good to know that the index and context markers in FrameMaker will translate to OmniHelp. And yes, as an experiment, I output MS HTML Help from FM using Mif2Go, and aside from some configuration goofs on my part, it went very smoothly. 

We're looking at OmniHelp now, and we're kind of concerned about the number of HTML files it has to install. We're worried about one going missing or getting altered. 

Jeff, has performance been an issue with Adobe AIRHelp? I've heard that it's slow. And are you producing that with RoboHelp? 

Fei Min 

-----Original Message----- 
From: robert.lauriston at gmail.com [mailto:robert.lauriston at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston 
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 2:01 PM 
To: Fei Min Lorente; framers at lists.frameusers.com 
Subject: Re: Choosing a Help Format 

If you've already got MIF2Go generating EclipseHelp, how your docs are structured is of no concern. Adding a second or third output format in MIF2Go is a very minor task compared with the first. 

On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 10:52 AM, Fei Min Lorente <FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com> wrote: 
> Not DITA. It's our own DTD. 
> 
> Fei Min 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Writer [mailto:generic668 at yahoo.ca] 
> Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2013 1:51 PM 
> To: Fei Min Lorente; framers at lists.frameusers.com 
> Subject: Re: Choosing a Help Format 
> 
> By "structured", do you mean DITA or some other type of structured content? 
> 
> Nadine 
> 
>> 
>>I've got documentation in structured FrameMaker 10 and Mif2Go. I've produced Eclipse Help routinely in the past, but for the first time, we're creating a user interface in Visual Studio. We want to integrate the Help so that a button or menu item in the UI will open a Help window, complete with a table of contents and search facility. An index would be nice, and context-sensitive links to the documentation would be nice, but are lower priority. 
>> 
>>The software is intended for Windows operating systems only, and it's supposed to be a standalone installation-no internet or network required. 
>> 
>>We are considering Microsoft HTML Help, but have a few concerns because it seems somewhat dated and lacking in active development on Microsoft's part. We are also considering standalone Eclipse Help because it's being maintained and we can leverage our previous experience, but we are somewhat daunted by its size and the fact that we couldn't find anyone using it when they aren't producing an Eclipse-based product. WebHelp requires us to buy RoboHelp, which isn't out of the question, but I'm not sure we can justify the cost because we don't need it to run cross-platform nor from a server, and our developer is a bit concerned about the uncompiled set of output files being too easy for customers to mess with. Could anyone suggest any other Help formats we should look at? Can anyone endorse a Help format or tell us which ones we should avoid? Can anyone (besides Jeremy J) tell me about their experience with OmniHelp? 
>> 
>>Fei Min Lorente 
>>Senior Technical Communicator 
>>Medical and Wireless Division 
>>feimin.lorente at onsemi.com 
>>+1 519-884-9696 ext. 2229 | Waterloo office 
>>+1 519-831-4931 | mobile 
>>+1 905-631-5724 | fax 
>>www.onsemi.com 
> _______________________________________________ 
> 
> 
> You are currently subscribed to framers as robert at lauriston.com. 
> 
> Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. 
> 
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
> framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com 
> or visit 
> http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/robert%40lauriston 
> .com 
> 
> Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit 
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. 
_______________________________________________ 


You are currently subscribed to framers as jackdeland at comcast.net. 

Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com. 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to 
framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com 
or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/jackdeland%40comcast.net 

Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit 
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20131121/5272a194/attachment.htm>