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Subject:Re: Conditional text and help development From:Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET> Date:Thu, 31 Jul 1997 07:31:42 -0500
At 01:28 PM 7/30/97 -0600, you wrote:
>Susan writes:
>
> Does anyone know of a help development tool that provides a
>conditional
> text feature like FrameMaker's?
>
>
>You could use FrameMaker to create your source using its conditional
>text feature, then use a decent rtf filter (like Omni System's
>Mif-to-RTF filter) to generate your two (or more) rtfs and compile with
>HCW. It's not as convenient as using a HAT, but you get the conditional
>text option.
>
>I've heard HDK has some pretty cool features. Anyone know if it supports
>some kind of conditional text option?
>
>Bill Burns
>Technical Writer
>ILE Communications Group
>billdb -at- ile -dot- com
Actually, going from MIF to RTF is unnecessary. FrameMaker's native output
RTF is just fine for compiling straight into help. I know. We've done it
lots of times, and using conditional text for it, too. And as someone else
noted, conditional text is NOT hidden text. In FM there can be dozens or
hundreds of conditional text tags, so you can create a parent document for
training, for several similar products, and for help files. In practice
we've developed templates with conditional tags so that the tech writer can
almost literally push a key and get RTF ready for import into ForeHelp,
which is our favored HAT. Once there the various topics are automatically
separated according to style tags, while jumps and other specialty items had
to be hand-coded. One client could produce a complete help file, with
hundreds of topics, in two days.
We tried to overcome that last manual step, but it didn't prove economically
feasible to do. Theoretically you can do it by tagging Frame text as hidden,
which produces a jump in help. That introduces other problems, though. If
only Frame's RTF output filter could convert Frame hypertext links to hidden
text, all would be well and there'd be no need at all for any MIF-to-RTF
mucking about. As it is, it usually isn't worthwhile going from MIF to RTF
when the only penalty for not doing so is a bit of hand-coding. On the other
hand, if you're in an environment with multiple-platform Frame files, then
MIF may be the best way to store, retrieve, and reuse the files.
One other caveat about Frame's RTF...it isn't worth a dime exporting
graphics. Once that's conquered the Frame-to-help loop will be almost perfect.
Tim Altom
Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
FrameMaker support ForeHelp support
FrameMaker-to-HTML Conversions
HTML Help Consulting and Production
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