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RE: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a
Subject:RE: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a From:"Mike Hamilton" <mhamilton -at- madcapsoftware -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:40:41 -0700
*** Post by a Tool Vendor ***
Mike Starr responds:
And to further disclose, MadCap Flare doesn't support WinHelp. If Microsoft
allowed WinHelp in Vista, MadCap would have to do a hurry-up implementation
of WinHelp in order to remain viable in the marketplace.
Mike Hamilton responds:
I assure you Mike, we have no plans to support WinHelp in the future. MadCap Flare is a tool targeted at today's technology and tomorrow's technology, not technology from the past. If people are well informed, weigh all of the pros and cons, and based on their audience choose to continue with WinHelp then I wish them well. Flare is not a tool for that audience, and will not be. It is not a large business risk for us as the community of WinHelp authors represents a small percentage of the industry and is diminishing every day. That is not to say that I personally am not a fan of the WinHelp technology, in fact I worked with a customer on a WinHelp project just this week. I just can't build a business case for supporting WinHelp in Flare.
I am not here to tell anyone what they should or should not use, I was just hoping to help people to have the information to make such a decision intelligently. I did notice one comment that it is no big deal because they could just convert their WinHelp project to HTML Help in an afternoon. That is very true, but could your developers do the same for their application? I would hate to be the documentation author the day that WinHelp blows up having to go in to the Director of R&D and inform him/her that all development has to come to a grinding halt so that they can go back and recode every context sensitive help link in the application for a dot release to be compatible with the new help format I am giving them.
Again, I am not here to tell anyone what formats to use. People should definitely be aware of any potential problems when they make their decisions, and that is all I was trying to do. I said earlier that anyone that chooses to continue using WinHelp should have a strong back-up plan just in case. That back-up plan should definitely include the developers in your organization as well.
Mike Hamilton
V.P. Product Management
MadCap Software
________________________________
From: Mike Starr [mailto:mike -at- writestarr -dot- com]
Sent: Sat 9/23/2006 12:59 AM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Cc: Mike Hamilton
Subject: Re: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a
----- Original Message -----
Message: 22
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 10:01:03 -0700
From: "Mike Hamilton" <mhamilton -at- madcapsoftware -dot- com>
Subject: RE: I'm sticking with WinHelp (was Re: WinHelp on Vista - a
usefullink)
*** Post by a Tool Vendor ***
<snip>
Just a point of order here, WinHelp on Vista is the mythical format as
nobody has seen the new WinHelp engine that is supposed to be coming for
this new OS. At the same time, demos of Vista Help have been up and running
for the world to see for well over a year (and longer for those under NDA
with Microsoft).
Mike Starr replies...
I'm considering the Vista Help a mythical format because the average
technical writer doesn't have the ability to develop documentation in that
format. From my perspective, that makes it vaporware.
The other problem that I see is that the WinHelp format, with its
unrestricted macro support is a HUGE security risk and with Microsoft's
focus on security for the Vista OS I wouldn't expect the new WinHelp engine
to support everything that the older ones have. This is purely my
speculation, but it may be severly crippled in capabilities to plug some
security holes.
I am not the only one to see the problems with security in WinHelp, here is
a post made by one of the Microsoft Help MVPs on one of the Microsoft blogs
on the subject:
"As has been pointed out, WinHelp does pose a substantial security risk.
Virtually anything can be run using its extensive macro capabilities."
And at the Writer's UA show this year there was a presentation that focused
exclusivey on security issues as they apply to online help and the
presentation was not kind to WinHelp.
Mike Starr responds:
And CHM help is better how?? Meanwhile, I'm not aware of any "in the wild"
WinHelp exploits. Yes, I'm sure it's theoretically insecure but the script
kiddies have had ample opportunities to attempt to exploit those
vulnerabilities. If I'm distributing the help file as part of an application
install, I already have more than enough capability of exploiting your
system that I don't need to do it via WinHelp. In order for a script kiddie
to exploit a system via WinHelp, they'd probably first have to get an
unsuspecting innocent to download a .hlp file, then get them to access the
proper topic in it.
<snip>
Now, for full disclosure I am in the business of selling help authoring
tools so take my words with a grain of salt. Having read my points above you
may still have a valid reasoning/case for using WinHelp with your
environment and customers, however I would highly recomend having a strong
back up plan just in case. My crystal ball isn't always perfect but I can
see the day that the first virus is found that impacts the Vista OS through
a security loophole caused by the WinHelp viewer and the very next day there
could be a Windows Update that removes it from everyone's OS once and for
all.
Mike Starr responds:
And to further disclose, MadCap Flare doesn't support WinHelp. If Microsoft
allowed WinHelp in Vista, MadCap would have to do a hurry-up implementation
of WinHelp in order to remain viable in the marketplace.
Mike Hamilton
V.P. Product Management
MadCap Software
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