RE: webworks vs PDF for single-source online delivery

["Brierley, Sean" <Sean -at- Quodata -dot- Com>]

Hallo:

WebWorks Publisher SE is a "lite" edition of Quadralay's WebWorks Publisher
Pro. WWP SE is fine, as far as it goes, which is an HTML and XML export
filter. I cannot recommend you make or try to make online help using WWP SE
. . ..

WebWorks Publisher Pro, however, is a different, highly-customizable,
efficient tool for creating online help in multiple formats from Adobe
FrameMaker.

PDF is electronically-distributable and provides and index, TOC, and
word-search for navigation. PDF lends itself very well to printing page
ranges, one or more topics, or an entire document. Thus, you can print off a
section or sections and read about them and their background before
performing the actions or using the features you read about. However, if you
have a specific question, right now, on a particular item . . . the
information you need might be hidden in the flow of the PDF.

Online help give you instant, chunked, nuggets of discrete information on a
particular topic right now. This format does not lend itself to printing
anything, except, perhaps the current topic. Online help is also
electronically-distributable and provides TOC, index, and search features
for navigation, adding the ability to build a favorites list in some cases.
If you want to learn about something beforehand, get a strategic big picture
of something, online  help is probably not the format you need to use.

HTML help comes in a variety of flavors. Microsoft's HTML Help exists as a
single file, CHM. This is proprietary. It replaces the proprietary WinHelp
format, HLP. You need a Microsoft OS plus IE version 3 or later installed
(though you can use and set as default any other browser, if you choose).
There are various flavors of cross-platform, cross-browser HTML-based help
formats out there. These are uncompiled and, pretty much, exist as a
separate HTML file for each topic and add the burden of a separate file for
each graphic. Then, there is Java Help. Sun's Java Help, for example, can
exist as a single JAR file. Sun's Java Help seems crude and buggy, but is
cross-platform. Users need to download the Java Run-time Environment to use
this kind of help--which they will likely already have if running other Java
applications.

HTH

Cheers,

Sean<Br>
sean -at- quodata -dot- com

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	McIntosh, Cathleen [SMTP:Cathleen -dot- McIntosh -at- vistacpg -dot- com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, December 12, 2000 12:36 PM
> 
> I've been contemplating upgrading my Standard Edition of Webworks
> Publisher
> to the Professional Edition 6.0 and using it instead of RoboHelp to create
> WinHelp and HTMLHelp (or some other web-based help). I need to reduce the
> time it takes to create online help, and I'd like to do it by
> single-sourcing. However, after creating some sample HTMLHelp files with
> the
> Standard Edition, I'm wondering if a PDF file wouldn't be as sufficient.
> Does anyone have any thoughts as to the benefits of HTMLHelp/Webworks vs.
> PDFs available from a help menu? What obvious differences exist between
> the
> two formats, besides the GUI. (BTW, I haven't created a frameset with WWP
> yet, and I don't even know if a two- or tri-pane window would be available
> in the HTMLHelp.)

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