Output type considerations

[NetDisplaySystems]

Hi all,

Maybe I haven't searched the forum thoroughly enough, but I couldn't find a topic that concerns the following issue.
I'm writing technical documentation for the software package (Windows Desktop applications created with VB.Net [Visual Studio 2010]) that we're currently developing and planning to release shortly.
We chose to take WebHelp as our output for two reasons:
1. Layout-wise it looks a lot better than the old HTMLHelp (.chm) output
2. We're considering offline (Help embedded in the software itself) and online Help (WebHelp output hosted on our own servers)

All works perfectly fine, but we're facing a deployment issue: the WebHelp output is a number of folders and separate files, the final set of which is not determined yet since all is still under development. We're trying to avoid changing deployment settings every time a new topic or folder is created in the documentation, so we're re-considering reverting to HTMLHelp output as this is one file each and every time, even though it looks somewhat old-fashioned.

We would like to know how other people deal with this kind of problem.
Is there a MadCap way to export/build WebHelp output as one file or do you choose another format (e.g. HTMLHelp [.chm]) to put in your software as embedded Help?

[RamonS]

ZIP the WebHelp, deploy the archive, and have the installer unzip the files locally. With that the install script always deals only with one file while still having control where to place the contents.

[NetDisplaySystems]

Thanks, Ramon!

We're going to investigate that option.