MadCap Software Forums

I'm researching HATs and am wondering if it's worth buying Flare if I don't plan to use it as an authoring tool. We use Adobe FrameMaker and don't plan to change that anytime soon. We plan to output to HTML help. Is it relatively easy to create the link to the FM files for constant updates or will I need to continually reimport the FM files to Flare to see the latest updates?

Also, are there any other outputs that Flare offers, other than HTML, that run on standalone PCs?

Thanks in advance.
Michelle

vbmichelle wrote:I'm researching HATs and am wondering if it's worth buying Flare if I don't plan to use it as an authoring tool.

You'd need to buy it even if you're not going to change the text because you'd need to set up the online output parameters (the skin, the title that appears in the browser, etc.). And you'd most likely want to edit some content, since text like "see 'Configuring the System' on page 24" doesn't work so well in online output.

vbmichelle wrote:Also, are there any other outputs that Flare offers, other than HTML, that run on standalone PCs?

WebHelp can run from the user's computer -- you just need to enable MOTW on the output so IE users won't get that annoying security warning when they open the help. DotNetHelp can also run on the user's computer, but it requires the viewer be installed, as well. HTML Help (.chm) is available, of course, although it's ugly.

WebHelp Plus could run on the end user's computer, but it would require the user to have IIS capabilities on their computer and enabled and set up, so that one's probably out, unless your own application requires IIS. WebHelp Mobile you wouldn't want to use on a standard computer.

PDF output, too, of course, could be viewed on the user's computer if they have some PDF viewer.

Thanks for this valuable infor. Ugh, it sounds like we'll have to go with HTML Help as much as I hate to do that. We are delivering our online help on a medical device that will not be connected to the Web. HTML Help will work but it's so old fashioned. At least the clients will get what they need though regardless of how it looks.

vbmichelle wrote:We are delivering our online help on a medical device that will not be connected to the Web.

WebHelp output doesn't mean you need to be connected to the Web. It means it uses a browser to display the help. WebHelp can run on a standalone computer that isn't connected to anything, so long as that computer has a browser program installed on it. The MOTW (mark-of-the-web) option I mentioned before is what you need to enable to be able to view the WebHelp output running on the local computer if you're using IE as the browser. Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (I think) can view locally-run WebHelp without any problems. But if the computer has IE and that's what will be used to view the WebHelp output, then you need to enable the MOTW option in the WebHelp target.

Ah, now I understand. How many files are delivered with WebHelp? Are they as compact as .chm files? Can you have context sensitive help with WebHelp?

BTW, I realize I've have to purchase Flare for the output capabilities it offers, but my point was that if I'm not going to be using it for the authoring, as I'd still need to use FrameMaker, is it worth it or would a different HAT be more cost effective?

vbmichelle wrote:How many files are delivered with WebHelp? Are they as compact as .chm files?

No, there are multiple files in a WebHelp output, as opposed to a single .chm file. The number of files would depend in part on the number of topics you have, but there are several other files that are included as part of every WebHelp output, most of which are created by Flare during the build process.

vbmichelle wrote:Can you have context sensitive help with WebHelp?

Yes. You can make CSH calls using a topic identifier, map ID, or the topic's file name. For the topic identifier and map ID you'd need an alias file, but you wouldn't need that for calling a topic by its file name.

vbmichelle wrote:BTW, I realize I've have to purchase Flare for the output capabilities it offers, but my point was that if I'm not going to be using it for the authoring, as I'd still need to use FrameMaker, is it worth it or would a different HAT be more cost effective?

I don't use FM, but from what I understand, you can still do the authoring in FM and just reimport the content, although you'd have to ask others here if they've found that's the best way to use FM with Flare. As for other HATs, I used RoboHELP a long time ago, but I believe its cost is comparable. I don't know about other HATs.

Just out of curiosity, is there a particular reason why you want or need to stay with FM for the authoring tool, or is it just a matter of being more familiar with that program?

We've standarized on FrameMaker because it's a great product, suits our needs, and works well for our translation vendor who uses Trados. For now only one project would be output to online help as only one of our medical devices is Windows based.

Ah, got it. There might be other HATs out there that can take FM straight to a WebHelp-like output; I'm not aware of any, but the FM forums might. However, there are quite a few people who do the FM to Flare path because they like some of the features available in Flare for enriching the online experience for the end users.

I think Laura (lacastle) works with FrameMaker and has post in the past about it. Oh, Lauraaaaa. Got some tips for the Michelle?

LTinker68 wrote:Ah, got it. There might be other HATs out there that can take FM straight to a WebHelp-like output; I'm not aware of any, but the FM forums might. However, there are quite a few people who do the FM to Flare path because they like some of the features available in Flare for enriching the online experience for the end users.

I used to use an older version of Quadralay WebWorks Publisher (now ePublisher), which could produce HTML Help and WebHelp-type outputs.

It could produce help from your FrameMaker docs ok, but I found it a bit limited in terms of what you could do with the help. It would be ok if your primary output was print/PDF and you made a lot of use of FrameMaker's print-based features, and were happy with a basic no-frills help system.

Our emphasis switched from print/PDF to help/web outputs, so we stopped using FrameMaker/WebWorks and converted all our projects to Flare. Flare is designed for single-sourcing, so we can produce fully-featured help and PDFs, without a trade-off in quality for one type of output. For us, using Flare is a far superior solution.

LTinker68 wrote:I think Laura (lacastle) works with FrameMaker and has post in the past about it. Oh, Lauraaaaa. Got some tips for the Michelle?

You linked me in a post. I guess i'm "known" for something now

However, my real FM experience is limited to importing into Flare - http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... +importing - as quickly as possible. I've used FM a few times in the past, but it is so specialized and cumbersome. Flare uses accepted XML and CSS standards that anyone can learn and apply. And, not only are there multiple online/electronic outputs, but Word and PDF outputs are generally good too. Single sourcing is the way of the future (and present)!

Yes, it's a big process to move from FM to Flare (see my post above), but i think it's worth it. Yes, it's a [big] process to learn Flare, but the organization (and sanity) that comes from having your content divided into topics instead of monster books is worth it for me too.

Dave Lee wrote:Our emphasis switched from print/PDF to help/web outputs, so we stopped using FrameMaker/WebWorks and converted all our projects to Flare. Flare is designed for single-sourcing, so we can produce fully-featured help and PDFs, without a trade-off in quality for one type of output. For us, using Flare is a far superior solution.

This was another reason why i switched to Flare at my current company. The guy in charge of documents before i got here was creating them in FM with PDF output, but no one else knew how to use FM, and he was the ONLY one who could ever make any changes. Technically, I'm the only one with Flare now, but my SME's like that I can create a Word doc for them to edit and then I put the changes back into Flare and create a PDF (sometimes) or my webHelp.

Thanks for your comments, Laura. One thing about your response concerned and confused me a little. You said "Flare uses accepted XML and CSS standards that anyone can learn and apply. And, not only are there multiple online/electronic outputs, but Word and PDF outputs are generally good too. Single sourcing is the way of the future (and present)!"

Are you saying that only working in XML is single-sourcing? If I understand single-sourcing correctly, it's using one source to output to many different media types, correct? I did not think the source files had to originate in XML.

vbmichelle wrote:Thanks for your comments, Laura. One thing about your response concerned and confused me a little. You said "Flare uses accepted XML and CSS standards that anyone can learn and apply. And, not only are there multiple online/electronic outputs, but Word and PDF outputs are generally good too. Single sourcing is the way of the future (and present)!"

Are you saying that only working in XML is single-sourcing? If I understand single-sourcing correctly, it's using one source to output to many different media types, correct? I did not think the source files had to originate in XML.

I agree, XML is not the only way to single-source. I was just saying that Flare uses XML, which is a "generic" language that anyone can learn and use in a variety of software tools and outputs.

I don't know any FM outputs except for PDF (the only way i have used it, so i don't know if there are others or how easy they are). if it were me, and i had to make online output, i would probably want my content to be saved in the tool that makes online output. and if i had other content that only needed PDF output (and i was already using the online output tool), i would probably want to work that content in the same interface since i can also make PDFs there, and have it available just in case it needed to be online one day.

I guess this topic could turn in to the benefits of FM vs. Flare, but in most cases, it's probably personal preference. in my case, i'd rather use 1 tool (flare for writing and publishing online) than 2 (FM for writing, Flare for publishing).

lacastle wrote: I was just saying that Flare uses XML...

Just to clarify... Topic files are XHTML and have extensions like .htm or .html or .aspx (depending on what you choose). The Flare support files (TOC, glossary, index, etc.) are XML files. In the authoring environment, the support files have Flare-specific extensions, but when you generate the output they resolve to .xml files (with some corresponding .js files).

So single-sourcing in Flare means you can generate multiple outputs (e.g., user's guide, quick start guide, admin guide, knowledgebase) in multiple formats (WebHelp, PDF, Word, .chm) from one project file, or even multiple project files that you merge at run-time. So from the single-sourcing standpoint, Flare is far superior to FM.

If you are happy writing in FrameMaker and just want to convert your content to HTML Help, I would go with WebWorks ePublisher. Once you set up your templates, it's a matter of minutes to produce your output. You will face significant effort to convert FrameMaker to Flare.

ksoltys wrote:If you are happy writing in FrameMaker and just want to convert your content to HTML Help, I would go with WebWorks ePublisher. Once you set up your templates, it's a matter of minutes to produce your output. You will face significant effort to convert FrameMaker to Flare.

I would disagree with that.

You can use Flare to do do exactly the same job as ePublisher. If you set up an import template in Flare, you can continue to edit your source files in FrameMaker, and then just re-import the files before building your help. You don't need to touch any of the content in Flare.
Also, I don't think the setup process takes any longer or is more difficult in Flare than in ePublisher; I can set up an import and produce help within minutes in Flare.

What I'd suggest is getting the free trial of Flare and trying it out for yourself; then you'll see how the process works.

Something to keep in mind is that Frame + WebWorks is more expensive than Flare, at least it was the last time I checked.