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[platform-help-dev] RE: Tools for creating and maintaining help files

Frank,

My solution is to use a Framemaker structured application called
DocFrame from www.scriptorium.com
Using DocFrame, I produce XML files from Framemaker content and
transform the xml with a DocFrame-provided XSL. The XSL had to be
modified to produce the Eclipse TOC files. I also automatically create
context-sensitive help (i.e., Eclipse Infopops). The plugin.xml is
static, so I created it manually.

The plus side of this solution is that I get a fully functional Eclipse
help system from Framemaker with a few button clicks. I can also produce
good-looking PDFs since the DocFrame template has a full set of
paragraph/character tags.  

The minus side is the learning curve of using structured Framemaker and
the custom work for the XSL.

Since you are already using WebWorks, you might check out Quadralay's
latest XML tooling. You might also be able to add WebWorks scripting to
your current Webworks environment to convert your TOC to an Eclipse TOC.

Regards,
Wendy Beren



-----Original Message-----
From: platform-help-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:platform-help-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jenny Craven
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 12:36 PM
To: 'platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [platform-help-dev] RE: platform-help-dev Digest, Vol 3, Issue
2


Frank, I can't speak for anyone else, but we completed exactly the same
project last year. We had about 20 books to convert to html.

We use the Homesite+ editor that comes with Dreamweaver...seems to have
all the functionality we need and was recommended by several
professional web content developers that I know. We use the same editor
to maintain the .xml files for the tocs. It views XML well enough to see
and fix your errors. You can also use Dreamweaver itself, but there is
extra functionality that you don't really need. Overall, you don't use a
large number of tags if you keep it simple, and if you back every tag up
with a CSS style, presentation is consistent.

CSE HTML Validator is a great low-cost tool with a similar built-in
editor. We use it to validate HTML syntax and links for production
handoff. This is an important quality check when you manage a large
number of files with internal and external links.

TopStyle is a popular .css editor and does a nice job helping you create
a common style that you can easily update or change.

We produce XHTML that validates to W3C syntax standards to ensure we can
convert to all XML if necessary. I am not sure that WebWorks output is
clean enough to qualify for W3C compliance, but it depends on what your
objectives are.

It is also important to set your objectives with the content: do you
want to present online books, or do you want to build an online help
system with a hierarchical design, reusable topics, and the ability to
insert new content. We develop all new content now directly in XHTML.
FrameMaker seems clunky if we have to go back to it for any reason.
WebWorks is no longer in our picture at all.

There are other tools and other strategies. It would be interesting to
know what other shops do. 

Regards,
Jenny Craven
jenny.craven@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
858.480.3645


-----Original Message-----
From: platform-help-dev-request@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:platform-help-dev-request@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 9:00 AM
To: platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: platform-help-dev Digest, Vol 3, Issue 2


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Today's Topics:

   1. Tools for creating and maintaining help files
      (Frank.Turovich@xxxxxxxxx)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 10:53:48 -0500
From: <Frank.Turovich@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [platform-help-dev] Tools for creating and maintaining help
	files
To: <platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID:
	<AADDB69D47B8C5498F30600FDC3CD904793B35@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Am about to start converting several books worth of html files (100s of
files) into Eclipse ready help content and am wondering what tools
everyone else is using to do this? Have manually done this with a couple
of small books to learn the process but think that there is something I
may be missing to help me do the job more efficiently.

Having looked around, I see that there are several tools to create and
maintain the html files (Dreamweaver, etc.) but can find nothing that
helps me in setting up and maintaining the XML and TOC files for
subsequent updates. So, I'm wondering if this is always a manual
process? If not, what tools and processes do you use to keep your docs
up-to-date and easy to maintain?

Original books are in Adobe FrameMaker and conveted to HTML using
Quadralay's Webworks Publisher. After that, manual intervention appears
to be the only method to convert the HTML to work with Eclipe's help
system.

Please tell me I've missed something that can help.

Thx // frank



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