Re: AuthorIt vs. Flare and Source Control

["J.A.W.D. Glennie" <jawd_glennie -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Christine,

I haven't used, Flare, but I have used both RoboHelp and Doc-to-Help in the past.  I switched to Author-IT (AIT) five years ago, and it would be very tough for me to go back to a strict HAT such as Flare.  

I'm finding it a little difficult to answer you since I don't know what you considered when you were evaluating the two products, but my experience was that producing quality print output from Robo was prohibitively expensive.  AIT, however, produced quality output both to print and online.  Moreover, since AIT is a light-weight content management system (CMS), it's much easier to restructure your documents for different outputs.  That's a major benefit to me, since I often prefer to implement different structures in print and online.

Author-IT, being a CMS, uses it's own version control.  Source control is superfluous; you would have to source-control the library database, which really is not practical.  Be sure, however, that you have a regular back-up regimen on your library databases.  Also, if you expect to connect remotely to your libraries (i.e., you're working at home and connecting to your libraries in the office over VPN), you would be safer to host the libraries on SQL Server rather than relying on the default Jet database.  The latter format is extremely vulnerable to corruption if the connection is interrupted.  

I have a few complaints about AIT.  Some of the less commonly-used outputs are a bit buggy.  I also find the variable system to be a bit awkward in some cases, and would prefer a more flexible system of conditional text.  

That said, I find that AIT gives me much more flexibility in the output I produce.  The product has a strong online community backed by technical support I found superior to Robo's.

I can't address your localization questions.  I haven't worked in an environment that required any localization.  

Hope this helps.  If you have other questions, let me know.

JAWD.

Christine Leisgen <Christine -dot- Leisgen -at- gmgcolor -dot- com> wrote: Dear all,

I worked with Robohelp in the last years (in a different company). I am
now starting a new project. The main demands are:

* Html Help and Printed Output
* I want to translate/manage two languages by myself
* I will be the only author working on the project
* It is one project with multiple outputs with only minor differences
* Translation into several languages (incl. Asian) in the long run;
either by agencies or by freelancers (we have quite a special product)

I think the best tools would be AuthorIt or Flare, maybe in combination
with Across. I tried out and like both, so I cannot really make up my
mind. Would you be so kind to share your experience with me, maybe point
out benefits or drawbacks I might have missed during my evaluation?

Is it possible (and practicable) to use Across with Authorit, but
without the Localization manager?

Also, has anybody experience with source / version control, either in
Authorit or with the Team foundation server, especially for tagging new
(= not translated) content? I know it might not be necessary, as I will
work on the project alone, but it might be useful not to get lost in the
jungle.

Thanks in advance, Christine


       
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