Help Authoring Tools
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
RoboSUCKS!!!! Every help system I have done we always ended up going back to the primitive MS tool and a simple editor. We used Word for the RTF files and something other than FontPageNightmare for an HTML editor. RoboHelp trashed our help file system constantly. It was VERY VERY VERY buggy. Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
I just started using Help & Manual[^]. This tool makes the documentation/help file process used by a former employer look like a minor felony. It is easy to generate HTML help as well as PDF output. There is built in support for generating indices (when creating things like manuals). There is also a built-in tool for taking screenshots and spiffing up the screenshots (i.e., adding drop down shadows, adding call outs). It is just incredible compared to what I'm familiar with. Sean Winstead
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RoboSUCKS!!!! Every help system I have done we always ended up going back to the primitive MS tool and a simple editor. We used Word for the RTF files and something other than FontPageNightmare for an HTML editor. RoboHelp trashed our help file system constantly. It was VERY VERY VERY buggy. Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
I would have recommended ForeHelp Premier, but sadly it's defunct now. :( You might want to look at ComponentOne[^](who bought Forefront last year) and see what they have to offer. Anna :rose: Homepage | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work. Trouble with resource IDs? Try the Resource ID Organiser Visual C++ Add-In
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
We use RoboHelp, and we are just about to switch from using RoboHelp's WinHelp (which works with Word) to RoboHelp's WebHelp (separate designer). We are switching because WinHelp (using the Word integration) either crashed Word or corrupted the help file, as soon as you started adding a moderately large number of images. This has wasted days of our help author's time. When I was changing our program to transition over to WebHelp, the code snippit that they included for MFC projects had bugs in it :mad: and tells you to link to a library that is "installed in the RoboHelp installation folder" - except the lib file wasn't there :mad: We're too far down the RoboHelp road to turn back now, but I've also downloaded and tried Help Authoring from Innovasys: http://www.innovasys.co.uk/products/helpstudio.asp[^] I found it very intuitive (I was able to build up a new project quite quickly) and it's got some nice source control integration. I'd recommend it for your short-list. Warren P.S. I would NOT recommend RoboHelp; however we also use their RoboDemo product and it is excellent for making animated demos of your program. It's based on Flash, so it should be able to be used with whatever help system you do end up choosing.
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
i tried RoboHelp about a year ago and found it to be very buggy, too (as Tim noted). now i just use a text editor and MS's HTMLHelp compiler (which is also horribly buggy, but at least it's free). ImgSource | CheeseWeasle
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
Use DocBook! I have had the same experience as both Tim and Chris, and when RoboHelp didn't crash or screw up the HTML in their *editor* (and thats being some what generous with the term) it would do other strange and wonderful things that were a source of aggravation. And, I could never get it to work from teh command line to try and automate the build process. So, I now do everything in docbook for larger projects, and if you search around a bit you can find info on all sorts of way to customize it for different outputs (PDF, etc). The default is for HTML ahd HTML Help, and the HTML Help output auto generates your indices for you (and can do the same with key words as well if you put them in the doc book). I wrote and article here on CP on how to get started with it. ¡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
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
We use MS Helpworkshop, MS paint and MSDEV to edit the .rtf files in text mode to generate all our helpfiles. Not had any real problems except having a reallly slow pc.... (still only on 600MHz!) Roger Allen Sonork 100.10016 Were you different as a kid? Did you ever say "Ooohhh, shiny red" even once? - Paul Watson 11-February-2003
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I just started using Help & Manual[^]. This tool makes the documentation/help file process used by a former employer look like a minor felony. It is easy to generate HTML help as well as PDF output. There is built in support for generating indices (when creating things like manuals). There is also a built-in tool for taking screenshots and spiffing up the screenshots (i.e., adding drop down shadows, adding call outs). It is just incredible compared to what I'm familiar with. Sean Winstead
Another vote for Help & Manual here. We've been using H&M for a while and like it a lot. It has a few minor quirks (what application doesn't?), but it's dead easy to use and has proven to be very stable (not one crash and not one byte lost in two years of fairly heavy use). Support has been excellent and the price is great. No affiliation here, just a very happy customer. Steve PS I don't think Help & Manual supports UNICODE, so that might be a show-stopper for some prospective users. (Please check the H&M web site rather than taking my word for this.)
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
I've always found that tools like RoboHelp are ok for the most part, but for the following reasons, I've always chosen to write my documentation in the rawest interface possible: -If there is something particular you want to do, it's more hassle because you're insulated from the actual source. -If something goes wrong, you're screwed because you're insulated from the actual source. -If you go into the source built by RoboHelp, or other higher-level authoring tools, your modifications have a high likelihood of getting things further awry. So for these reasons, I've always used a text editor instead of FP. As other people had mentioned, I used to use Word to create RTF files instead of RoboHelp. Another developer in my office swore by RoboHelp, but was converted when for some reason her index got completely befuddled, and she could not get RoboHelp to sort out the mess. Having created the RTF files from scratch gave me a much better understanding of how all the topics linked together. And now that the help files I create are CHM files, I follow the same mantra, build from scratch and you'll have a better idea of what is going on. 'Course, I use Visual Studio wizards to write code for me...;P Cheers, Carl
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
I like HelpScribble. Much cheaper than RoboHelp, and it does everything I need it to do.
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A co-worker has been given the task of adding built-in context sensitive help (probably compiled HTML) to a number of existing applications. The main application is written in VB6 the others are written in VC++ 6. So far he has not been impressed with the "free" Microsoft tools. He likes what he has seen in the RoboHelp demo but the cost is high enough that he wants to look around before he commits. The main things he's looking for are flexibility and ease of maintenance/editing. I told him I'd ask a huge group of developers I "know" and see what advice they have. So what is everybody using? What can you recommend? What should he look for? TIA Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.
We're using Wextech Doc2Help. 50/50 - it does what it's supposed to do, but it's a pain from time to time. For us it's really an advantage to have a single source for printed manual and online help. However, there is a major design flaw (deriving HTML page names from chapter titles) which makes many things problematic. Further, you cannot expect to use the full functionality of Word, just a subset. They have a new Version that (supposedly, but on that I would trust them) makes the processing more stable (with the version we use, you shouldn't touch keyboard or mouse while the translation is running).
"Vierteile den, der sie Hure schimpft mit einem türkischen Säbel."
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Tim Smith wrote: RoboHelp trashed our help file system constantly. It was VERY VERY VERY buggy. Interesting... do you recall what version(s) you were using? Mike Mullikin O.E.I. Beauty is only a lightswitch away.