RE: [HATT] Help As Part Of The Programming Language?

["Glenn Maxey" <glenn.maxey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jeremy,

This is the best news for Technical Writers since Mif2Go (and Webworks
Publisher) came on the market as tools that could reliably single-source
from FrameMaker (and now Word) into a host of different output formats. 

Wow... a "help engine" that is open source, cross-platform, and
cross-browser and supports standard HTML, context-sensitivity, and
encapsulated output (e.g., compiled into a single file).

I recall standing up during various sessions on JavaHelp, MS HTML-Help,
Oracle Help, etc. at the WinWriter's Online Help Conference a couple of
years ago and ribbing those companies for missing the mark. Tech writers
don't want to have to tweak their output for each output format, each
browser, or each platform. (Microsoft's perversion of HTML and even the
stealing of the name "HTML" in their "MS HTML-Help" to get
platform-specific CHM files is the biggest offender.) 

Tech writers would like to be able to concentrate on content, not on
anomolies in the output that these dense companies purposely introduce
to "standards" to supposedly differentiate themselves. Geez, if it is a
product that they're giving away for free and want content-creators to
use, then why do they impose such SNAFUs on us and why don't they
support it?

I give this initiative my complete backing. Even without (yet) having
looked at the details, I can see this doing a complete end-around to all
of the proprietary solutions out there. It has the potential to unseat
"MS HTML-Help" and even some of Adobe's PDF market.

Tech writers, keep your eye on this movement even if it seems really
techie at the moment. This is that simplified future that we desire.

Glenn Maxey
Technical Writer
Voyant Technologies, Inc.
1765 West 121st Avenue
Westminster, CO 80234-2301
Tel. +1 303.223.5164
Fax. +1 303.223.5275
glenn.maxey@voyanttech.com



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeremy H. Griffith [mailto:jeremy@omsys.com]
> Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2002 10:50 AM
> To: hatt@yahoogroups.com; Framers@FrameUsers.com; framers@omsys.com
> Subject: Re: [HATT] Help As Part Of The Programming Language?
> 
> 
> On Sat, 17 Aug 2002 07:41:41 -0600, "Don Lammers" <don@smountain.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> ["Glenn Maxey" <glenn.maxey@voyanttech.com> wrote:]
> >>>For me, the issue isn't that Help has a separate engine. The issue
> >>>is, why isn't that engine open-source and cross-platform? 
> >
> >The engine is open source. It's called a browser. The code 
> you have to
> >create to go from plain browser to tri-pane, and the tools 
> to make it so,
> >are what's not open source. And the reason is that nobody 
> has done it yet.

> 
> Well, actually... we've started a SourceForge project to do that
> very job.  Some months ago.  ;-)  As a tool vendor (of Mif2Go),
> we felt a need to provide a tri-pane, cross-platform Help viewer.
> But rather than duplicate effort to gain commercial advantage,
> we decided that we would collaborate with anyone else interested
> (including our competitors) to produce an open-source viewer that
> anyone could use.  It's licensed under the LGPL so that it can be
> built in to commercial products without fee or restriction:
>   https://sourceforge.net/projects/omnihelp/
> 
> When you go there, you'll see we're still at the "requirements"
> stage, with notes for a draft spec at:
>   
https://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=10160&group_id=4915
6

This is our first public mention of this project, and we'd be
delighted to see active participation by other members of this
group [HATT], and the Framers lists, in particular.

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  (jeremy@omsys.com)  http://www.omsys.com/

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