Looking for help authoring tool recommendation.
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Hmm, just tried it briefly... looks like sticking a fork in ones eye is less painful.
Wout
No, yes, well maybe, it depends on the weather outside :) Seriously it does work, in terms of easily compiling all the files together, just edit the HTML with some other HTML editor and then use the workshop to pull it all together.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
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No, yes, well maybe, it depends on the weather outside :) Seriously it does work, in terms of easily compiling all the files together, just edit the HTML with some other HTML editor and then use the workshop to pull it all together.
¡El diablo está en mis pantalones! ¡Mire, mire! Real Mentats use only 100% pure, unfooled around with Sapho Juice(tm)! SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0 0 rows returned Save an Orange - Use the VCF! VCF Blog
Aaah, that was what I figured too, I guess my expectations were a tad too high! :->
Wout
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I need to write a few html help pages, does anybody have a recommendation for a lightweight tool? It may cost a bit, but I don't need anything super powerful, just something that allows me to: - write help pages - write help index/contents tree - define the looks independently of the contents, with css preferably
Wout
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I need to write a few html help pages, does anybody have a recommendation for a lightweight tool? It may cost a bit, but I don't need anything super powerful, just something that allows me to: - write help pages - write help index/contents tree - define the looks independently of the contents, with css preferably
Wout
Your best shot is your favorite HTML editor, and HTML Help Workshop, as linked above. Seriously. Trust me. If you think that's like "sticking a fork in your eye", you haven't seem the other guys point at you. Your next bet is FAR[^], and if you insist on a shrinkwrapped software, I can recommend HelpMaker.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
I need to write a few html help pages, does anybody have a recommendation for a lightweight tool? It may cost a bit, but I don't need anything super powerful, just something that allows me to: - write help pages - write help index/contents tree - define the looks independently of the contents, with css preferably
Wout
We recently evaluated a few different help authoring products, although we were looking at more heavy-duty packages than I think you're after so I don't know if this info will be useful or not. But anyway: Help & Manual 4 was the tool that we ended up going with. It was the most expensive, but its also has the most features (and we're yet to find any bugs :) ). http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_overview.html[^] Fast Help was also a pretty good. Outputs in chm, pdf, html. http://www.fast-help.com/products.htm[^] EST Help Author Pro: I personally didn't like this one much as I found its font handling to be pretty unreliable, but some of my coworkers swear by it so maybe I was just using it wrong :) http://www.maxcomponents.net/[^] Help Scribble: it's cheap and cheerful. Lightweight but seemed to get the job done alright. It's biggest drawback is that it's not quite WYSIWYG, you still need to manually enter some custom tags here and there. But if you're not doing a lot of doco it might be just right for you. http://www.helpscribble.com/[^] Hope this was of some use to you! Cheers, Russ.
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I need to write a few html help pages, does anybody have a recommendation for a lightweight tool? It may cost a bit, but I don't need anything super powerful, just something that allows me to: - write help pages - write help index/contents tree - define the looks independently of the contents, with css preferably
Wout
Probably not the best suggestion for a writing a small HTML help file, but if you:
- want to write text and not embed presentation hints (just semantics - which can be an overhead, as they're XML)
- need a batch build capability
- want the ability to target multiple output formats (e.g. PDF and CHM)
- you're willing to put a little effort into the setup
then I can recommend the (free) e-novative Docbook environment[^]. We've used it to generate HTML help and PDF user guides (with front pages and headers and footers and things) from the same Docbook source. The main downsides are a) getting the output style you want (there are a lot of stylesheets) and b) writing the text (because of all the XML) - writing in Restructured Text or QuickBook format and then converting to Docbook as part of the doc build process would be the best bet, I guess.
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We recently evaluated a few different help authoring products, although we were looking at more heavy-duty packages than I think you're after so I don't know if this info will be useful or not. But anyway: Help & Manual 4 was the tool that we ended up going with. It was the most expensive, but its also has the most features (and we're yet to find any bugs :) ). http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_overview.html[^] Fast Help was also a pretty good. Outputs in chm, pdf, html. http://www.fast-help.com/products.htm[^] EST Help Author Pro: I personally didn't like this one much as I found its font handling to be pretty unreliable, but some of my coworkers swear by it so maybe I was just using it wrong :) http://www.maxcomponents.net/[^] Help Scribble: it's cheap and cheerful. Lightweight but seemed to get the job done alright. It's biggest drawback is that it's not quite WYSIWYG, you still need to manually enter some custom tags here and there. But if you're not doing a lot of doco it might be just right for you. http://www.helpscribble.com/[^] Hope this was of some use to you! Cheers, Russ.
Thank you very much for this evaluation! I had come accross Help & Manual 4 and Help scribble as well. The first one did give a way more professional impression, just judging from the appearance of the web site. Have you tried acrobat's robo stuff as well?
Wout
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We recently evaluated a few different help authoring products, although we were looking at more heavy-duty packages than I think you're after so I don't know if this info will be useful or not. But anyway: Help & Manual 4 was the tool that we ended up going with. It was the most expensive, but its also has the most features (and we're yet to find any bugs :) ). http://www.ec-software.com/products_hm_overview.html[^] Fast Help was also a pretty good. Outputs in chm, pdf, html. http://www.fast-help.com/products.htm[^] EST Help Author Pro: I personally didn't like this one much as I found its font handling to be pretty unreliable, but some of my coworkers swear by it so maybe I was just using it wrong :) http://www.maxcomponents.net/[^] Help Scribble: it's cheap and cheerful. Lightweight but seemed to get the job done alright. It's biggest drawback is that it's not quite WYSIWYG, you still need to manually enter some custom tags here and there. But if you're not doing a lot of doco it might be just right for you. http://www.helpscribble.com/[^] Hope this was of some use to you! Cheers, Russ.
I evaluated Help & Manual 4 and bought a license. Very easy to use, and you can customize the page content html and such to change the looks, exactly what I was looking for! It even does some more stuff that I was initially not thinking of, but which comes in extremely handy (would have been virtually undoable otherwise): we have 3 versions of our software which are slightly different, so also need 3 different help files. The cool thing is that it allows different 'builds', where certain topics or even parts of it can be conditional based on the build! Thanks again for your review compilation! :-)
Wout
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Your best shot is your favorite HTML editor, and HTML Help Workshop, as linked above. Seriously. Trust me. If you think that's like "sticking a fork in your eye", you haven't seem the other guys point at you. Your next bet is FAR[^], and if you insist on a shrinkwrapped software, I can recommend HelpMaker.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistWell, before I went sticking that fork in my eye, I went and tried Help & Manual 4 (suggested by one of the other posters)... and verdict is: awesome tool, I give it a 9.5 out of 10... and HTML Help Workshop is at roughly 2 :laugh:. So I'm glad I didn't trust you (but thanks for the advice anyway :-)). Oh yes, HelpMaker comes nowhere near it either, the $300 we paid for Help & Manual 4 was more than worth it.
Wout
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Well, before I went sticking that fork in my eye, I went and tried Help & Manual 4 (suggested by one of the other posters)... and verdict is: awesome tool, I give it a 9.5 out of 10... and HTML Help Workshop is at roughly 2 :laugh:. So I'm glad I didn't trust you (but thanks for the advice anyway :-)). Oh yes, HelpMaker comes nowhere near it either, the $300 we paid for Help & Manual 4 was more than worth it.
Wout
gah! I wrote Helpmaker when I wanted to write Help & Manual?! Someone hacked my post - seriously (trust me ;)). Guess I am growing old, or just faulty. Yeah, the shrinkwrpped software I would recommend is H&M. We do have some problems with importing tables and the quality of embedded formula objects, but beyond that it's exactly as it should be. Still, from my experience, for small (and even medium sized) manuals, HTML Workshop is enough if you don't already have something better. Maybe I could have expressed this more clearly.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
gah! I wrote Helpmaker when I wanted to write Help & Manual?! Someone hacked my post - seriously (trust me ;)). Guess I am growing old, or just faulty. Yeah, the shrinkwrpped software I would recommend is H&M. We do have some problems with importing tables and the quality of embedded formula objects, but beyond that it's exactly as it should be. Still, from my experience, for small (and even medium sized) manuals, HTML Workshop is enough if you don't already have something better. Maybe I could have expressed this more clearly.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistMy bet is old AND faulty. :D
Wout