Re: Word to on-line or Frame to on-line

[Scott Miller <smiller -at- CORP -dot- PORTAL -dot- COM>]

>>>>>>>
>Is it best to continue managing my large docs in Word and develop online
>material from there, or to move all the docs to Frame and develop online
>material from there.
>
>Also, can someone define for me on-line help versus on-line
>documentation?  Or point me to a good source so I can educate myself?
><<<<<<<
>
>With Word, you have an easy path to online help, since a lot of help
>authoring tools use Word as the text editor. It's possible to go from Frame
>to RTF to online help, but tricky.
>
>As for the difference between online help and online documentation... Online
>help is typically tied to a software application, and tells the user how to
>accomplish their goals when using that software application. It is
>context-sensitive for the task at hand, and extremely concise. The user
>should be able to:
>-  Find the correct information quickly
>-  Find only the information they need, when they need it
>-  Find additional information, if they need it
>-  Find information using their own language
>
>Online documentation is typically not tied to a single application, but is
>more wide in scope. A typical online documentation implementation is
>something like all of the technical reference, user's guide, installation
>guides, etc. for a suite of products. Online documentation typically includes
>some sort of full-text search mechanism such as the Verity search engine or
>Personal Librarian. It's more like a bunch o' books on a CD-ROM. When you
>have a ton of stuff to document, a whole shelf full of books, online
>documentation is very effective, if the search engine is good and (MOST
>IMPORTANT) if the documentation is organized in a way to make it work online,
>as opposed to printed.
>
>Choosing a search engine is a huge topic, although I've been out of the
>online documentation loop for a while, so maybe there is a clear-cut winner
>out there. Once you have chosen the search engine that is appropriate for
>your documentation, it will be easier to decide on the tool to produce it
>(Word or Frame).
>
>- Scott Miller
>Portal Information Network
>smiller -at- portal -dot- com
>


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