how to go structured

["Gil Yaker" <GYaker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hopefully some of you with more experience can guide me here and set me
straight.
My company is at the stage when we want to move our unstructured doc set to
a structured one. Our assumptions are that this move will:
a) make it easy to create on-line help
b) make future docset creation and management easier
c) make possible single sourcing easier
d) further the tech pubs team's knowledge set

As of now, our docset is not large. I'd guess ~2000 pages of static text,
graphics, and tables. There are two other writers besides me, so we're not
talking about a large team.

I assumed the paradigm used for single-source document publishing was
similar to web publishing: First, A CMS/database system on the backend that
holds and organizes the content. Next, some kind of middleware that
retrieves and processes the content. Finally, an output layer. But, I have a
feeling I am wrong. :)

It looks like there are two ways of setting up an XML-based documentation
shop using Framemaker:
1. Structured Framemaker out of the box that saves your documents as static,
xml-ish files. These files can easily be converted to whatever you want with
frame plug ins, style sheets, or filters.
2. Large CMS systems that really manage your documents (for both storage and
output formats) and only use Frame as a formatting application. (and they
are not cheap!!)

How far off the mark am I?
I'm sure I can think of a hundred more questions, and I guess I'm getting
away from my core tech writer skill set. But I'm a geek and would love to
learn how to design and build a system like this from scratch (I'm sure my
cohorts would prefer a painless solution:).
Feel free to reply off list or point me toward some good resources.
Obviously there's lots of info out there I've found, but nothing has really
taught me a clear way to evaluate our situation and learn about available
tools so I can come up with the best solution.

Thanks
-Gil




** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **