Re: converting Frame to down-level HTML

["Deborah Snavely" <dsnavely@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Stuart asked about routes from Frame to a limited subset of HTML; about
what was current when a recommendation for HTML 3.2 came down (HTML
never got past working draft; IE and Netscape were duking it out in
specialized extensions at the time). 

Links, lists, tables, and images...Can text wrap around images at left
or right?  Then it's almost certainly the HTML 3.2 Recommendation that's
your limit.


Some general comments about my experience getting content from Frame to
HTML:

1. WebWorks Publisher has a learning curve that is longer and steeper
than FrameMaker. In MY opinion. It was too demanding in 1995, and that
hasn't changed in 1999 or 2000 (or since Frame 6.0; tried it for a
contract). As Stuart noted, the mapping from Frame (and I tried it from
5.x and 6.0) is insufficiently specific and flexible. 

2. MIF2GO has worked for some people including some one-man shops (and
Hedley is at least on the same continent as you). I'm hoping to grasp
how to make it work for me in future now that the new user's guide has
been released, but I stopped spending my time on it a couple of months
ago after I found that my carefully limited-scope conversion didn't
preserve x-ref links in output files.

3. For a one-shot conversion, in a small shop or lone writer situation,
I recommend taking things as far as you can in Frame (where you speak at
least one of the two technical languages involved, Frame's own
terminology), and then using a freeware HTML editor on the result to fix
whatever doesn't work. If you're going to have to keep things in HTML
and work on them in future, you'll need to review and acquire either an
old HTML editor or use a recent one and ignore all the myriad features
that have been stuffed into one. I've used an old Dreamweaver 1.2 copy
for this purpose very happily, but I've downloaded a number of freeware
tools over the years that do the job nicely. PageSpinner, BBEdit Lite,
Arachniphilia...obviously you'll want the ones for your platform, but a
search on Google for "freeware HTML editors" took me to a series of
quality linked lists to the sources thereof. New HTML freeware seems to
pop up every month; it's not gone all commercial yet.

4. I have long used ForeHelp/ForeHTML as a help conversion route and
help-authoring tool, and it's MIF import is quite nice. If you need to
be able to do this frequently and have budget for a tool, I recommend
it. Back around the 1999 version, you could set your HTML limits by
selecting whether to output for HTML 3.2 or 4.0 recommdnations, but not
any more, alas. Set your conditions to use only ForeHelp's "InterHelp"
and then firmly IGNORE all tendencies to use its nicely automated
WinHelp-style TOC and index and related topics wizard. ForeHelp is a
help author's dream for the long haul, but may not be what suits your
need right now.

For what it's worth...

Deborah Snavely
Document Architect
Learning Products Engineering
Aurigin Systems, Inc. 
office: 541-688-8690
voicemail: 408-517-7414


Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 20:28:25 +0800
From: "Stuart Burnfield" <stuartb@tpg.com.au>
Subject: Save As HTML , 5.5.6 versus 6.0

I need to prepare simple online help from existing 'how to' topics.
The Help viewer is a browser widget that is 'frozen' at a fairly old
version of HTML. No-one is sure exactly what version -- it supports
the basics such as links, lists, tables and images, but not a lot
more.

Having little experience with HTML I've been dabbling with Save As
HTML in Frame 5.5.6. The results so far aren't very good, meaning
that I can't automate enough and must do too much editing of the
generated HTML. Two examples:
- - I want to map some graphics (buttons) but not others (screen shots)
- - I have many table-like paragraphs. In Frame they're implemented as
  paragraphs with a character-tagged phrase, then a tab, then the
  definition of the phrase. It appears I can only map Frame tables
  to HTML tables and Frame paragraphs to HTML paragraph tags.

I have 6.0 but have not needed to install it yet. My questions are:
- - Are the HTML facilities in 6.0 much better than those in 5.5.6?

- - Is it simply that 5.5.6 has an older version of WebWorks Standard?

- - Is it possible to specify a target HTML version, such as "Save As
  HTML 3.0"?

To sum up I guess I'm hoping for more sophisticated facilities that
will help me to produce less sophisticated HTML.

Thanks
- ---
Stuart Burnfield
Gentoo Communications
mailto:stuartb@tpg.com.au

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