Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

internetworkers - Modern documentation solution?

internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Michael Czeiszperger <czei AT webperformanceinc.com>
  • To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Modern documentation solution?
  • Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 15:22:49 -0400


I'm trying to figure out where to go with our ducumentation strategy and was
hoping to get some advice from the list.

The current situation is we sell an application which people download from
our
web site and install. All of the documentation is on the web site, and the
Help menu just brings up a browser pointing to the manual on the web site.

We've gotten a fair number of complaints about this setup from:

* People in foreign countries with lousy internet connections
* People don't like reading anything on the web
* People who claim to be using the product on computers without internet
connections (which is hard to believe given that its a web server testing
product)

I've tried just converting the web part of the manual to PDF, but it just
doesn't look that great, and certainly doesn't look like a printed manual,
which is what people seem to be expecting.

On the plus side, there's lots of other companies, like VMware that have
online manuals only, and I for one really like being able to search the web
site and find help.

Is there a solution that would allow us to both maintain the HTML-based web
pages and a printed version, and perhaps another version embedded with the
product (like JavaHelp) maybe?

I've looked at RoboHelp, but the program appears to be pretty junky, and was
wondering if there are any alternatives?

Thanks!

--
Michael Czeiszperger
czei AT webperformanceinc.com




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page