TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Help Magician From:YIGAL <tdsltd -at- NETVISION -dot- NET -dot- IL> Date:Wed, 27 Nov 1996 11:15:03 +-200
Earl
I am working with Help Magician for couple of years. Although the had some bugs in HMPro 30, it seems like they were fixed at release 3.5. The patch can be downloaded through thir web site.
I found the software easy to use and much more capable of any othe software tool which work together with MS Word RoboHelp, Doc to Help etc.
Software Interphase has just released Help Magician for 95.
Yigal Rahamim
T.D.S. - Training & Documentation Solutions Ltd.
31 Lehi St., Bnei Brak Israel, 51200
Tel: 972-3-5782818 Fax: 972-3-5782820
tdsltd -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il
----------
From: Earl Morton[SMTP:WorkgWords -at- AOL -dot- COM]
Sent: éåí ùìéùé 26 ðåáîáø 1996 21:24
To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
Subject: Help Magician
Bruce Byfield (byfield -at- direct -dot- ca) asked:
>>
Second, I've been asked to develop the context help and the
online manuals for my current project using Help Magician.
Although I've never used it, the program seems easy enough to
learn. However, I was wondering if anybody on the list had any
experience with it. In particular, I'm wondering if there are
any bugs or work-arounds I should know about. I notice, for
example, that it's designed for Windows 3.1--will it compile
properly under Win95? I'd hate to get too far into the project
only to find some unpleasant surprises.
<<
I've worked with Help Magician on a couple projects in the past and found it
to be rather buggy. I'm sorry I don't remember many details (it has been
few years), but I would certainly be cautious. We eventually shifted to Help
Yourself! with which we've been very happy. One thing I do remember about
Help Magician is that the interface used lots of its own graphics rather than
standard Windows dialog boxes and so on. This made performance pretty slow.
The tech support wasn't too bad, and they were pretty responsive about
helping us work around problems, but there were more problems than there
should have been. As I said, this was a few years ago, and I have no idea if
they have cleaned up the program in the meantime, so be sure and check it
out.