Re: online help via FrameMaker

[Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET>]

At 03:42 PM 10/31/97 -0800, you wrote:
>My boss has come up with a way for us to do our online help through
>FrameMaker. He wants us to do little "snippets" of graphics and
>text--each within its own Frame file, and then import them by reference
>into a module (which would be in another Frame file. Then export that
>module as HTML or RTF and use a "browser" that a guy here is developing
>in-house to compile and display the help. He (boss) thinks we can use
>the FrameMaker Book feature to keep track of all these files.
>
>My guess is that there will be literally thousands of "snippets," and
>maybe hundreds of modules.
>
>Does anyone have any comments about this? Whether you've done something
>like this, think it will or won't work and why, etc.? Even if you have
>questions for me, that might help me get a handle on how this will work.
>
>Thanks in advance for your help!
>
>Hillary Jones
>
>--
Why the flurry approach? Just use FrameMaker's conditional text feature and
plop 'em all down into one doc. Set up tags corresponding to the various
versions and mark your snippets. Then turn on or off the snippets in the
pattern you want and output to an RTF or HTML. If you use tags religiously
you can even take advantage of filters in things like ForeHelp and Weworks
Publisher to perform tricks on the sections that begin with those tags.


>
Tim Altom
Vice President, Simply Written, Inc.
317.899.5882 (voice) 317.899.5987 (fax)
FrameMaker support  ForeHelp support
FrameMaker Conversions
PDF Consulting and Production


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