Re: XML-based Help Authoring tools for customized help

["Sean Wheller" <seanwhe -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

-- David Knopf wrote:
> Most people I've worked with who've spent a good deal of time working
> with both Epic and Structured FrameMaker would choose the latter over
> the former in a heartbeat.

<sidebar>Uh Hummm!!! You mean the most that find it difficult to relinquish
the presentation layer.</sidebar>

The whole point of working in XML is that the content and presentation
layers are seperate. Frame is a DTP tool, from my perspective it is
therefore concerned with presentation. Authors have also become partial to
using Frame was word processor. In my books using Frame for the later
purpose, in an XML Publishing Tool Chain, defeats the purpose of working in
XML.

XML is True Single-source and Frame is WYSIWYG.
Both are on opposite ends of the same stick. If you try to bring them
together by bending the stick, it is bound to break at some point.

The tension limit, before the stick breaks, is WYSIOO (What You See Is One
Option). As WYSIWYG, Frame goes beyond the tension limit and breaks the
stick. Epic is WYSIOO, in my school, this does not break the stick and
therefore is an infinatley better option.

Leading Document Orientated XML Editors such as Epic, XXE, XMetal, Morphon,
and Syntext have all shown that WYSIWOO is the "best practice".

The pradgim of authoring in a WYSIWYG environment and then exporting to XML
is broken and in my option should not be employed in any information
development cycle where XML is employed as the storage format. XML, as many
have already said, is for exchange. The point of using XML in the
information development cycle is to avoid lock-in at the presentation layer
through the use of an open and standards based format. This format should be
transformable to any presentation (formatted) target.

I don't know much about Frame, so please correct me if I am wrong. But I
understand that a Frame template cannot be saved as an XSL that could be
used, by any XML Publishing Tool Chain, to transform an XML to a formatted
target such as HTML or XSL-FO.

If Frame could do this then it would be of tremendous value in a publishing
cycle that uses XML during the information development cycle. As I
understand the current Frame technology, it is unable to do so. The
technology is limited to  defining or controlling the design of content,
stored in a proprietry format, and then outputting it to a formatted target
capable of being displayed by a viewer technology.

Once a MIF is created and the layout, style etc are defined, any change to
the content source will require that the MIF be modified in order to
compensate for those changes. Whereas with XSL the transformation to the
presentation format dynamically compenates for modifications of the source.

<sidebar>Just out of interest, Docbook - The Defintive Guide, was written in
XML and then transformed to MIF using a Jade stylesheet.</sidebar>

African greetings,

Sean Wheller

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