RE: Modern vs Old-fashioned Help

[<Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com>]

None of my work involves creating any of the sort of Help systems talked
about on this list. Mostly, I work with a proprietary browser-based
product created from a vast SGML database. Certain forms of tagging
within the SGML "articles" are used to create the navigation links in
the final product. The navigation pane is akin to PDF bookmarks, but a
lot more flexible.

Most of the files in the database only require straightforward and
simple tagging. But a lot of the sub-sets of articles I work with need a
bit more convoluted sort of organization. They're niche products going
to customers with their own particular requirements.

And some of my projects have been actual PDF e-books that also needed
rather tricky bookmark organization. Not that the bookmarking is
particularly advanced, but I don't often see PDFs that use the full
bookmarking abilities. 

-BH

-----Original Message----- From: Kevin McLauchlan

Is there some major thing that you do, that predecessors omitted? 

Or is it just a long, tedious slog of inserting millions of cross
references and index markers, and creating sub-ToCs everywhere? 



--------------------------
 - k

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian -dot- Henderson -at- mitchell1 -dot- com
> 
> I've had so many bad experiences with horrible navigation in 
> electronic documents that creating good navigation is now one of my 
> absolute top priorities.
> I've taken over many existing projects that have required a complete 
> makeover, and most of the time the only feedback I get is about how 
> much easier the re-vamped product is to use. With all the changes that

> I might have made, it's the improved navigation that gets noticed the 
> most.
> 
> -Brian H.

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