Trends & Technologies LSIG Library

The STC Carolina chapter has a wealth of talent! Here's a place where we can share our experiences, list great URLs, point to superb help systems, or provide answers to common online communication questions.

You can also review the Technology Resources for other items.

Don't forget our national STC Online SIG magazine: HyperViews.

Documentation Generation Programs

Materials/info from DGP presentation by Greg Rakauskas. March 2001.

• DGP Powerpoint Slides that Greg showed. (attached to this page, 500K)
• A review of DGPs that work with C++. (attached to this page, 56K)
• STC Presentation by Susan W.Gallagher, "Yesterday API was just another acronym; today I have to document one!"
  http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/cmindware/api.htm
• Here's the link to her other white paper, "Oh, oh! The job ad says OO."
  http://pw1.netcom.com/~gscale/susanwg/cmindware/ohoh.htm
• API doc course and workbook by Manuel Gordon and Gordon Graham
  http://gordonandgordon.com/apisandsdks.html
• And here's some information about ActiveX control documentation generation software, if anyone is interested:
  • Name: VSDOCX Maker: ComponentOne
    Type: Purchase for $249
    Web site: http://www.componentone.com/
  • Name: COMdoc v1.5 Maker: OOPadelic Software
    Type: Shareware (register for $95)
    Web site: download from ZDNet
  • Name: Document! VB Maker: ?? (download from ComponentSource)
    Type: Purchase for $199
    Web site: Download from http://www.componentsource.com
  • Name: HTML Help COM Assistant Maker: ?? (download from ComponentSource)
    Type: Freeware
    Web site: Download from http://www.componentsource.com

Excellent WinHelp and HTMLHelp Resources:

• Winhelp list serv: Use these directions to subscribe to it. You can join this group by sending the message "sub WINHLP-L your name" (and not your email address) to listserv@admin.humberc.on.ca Type "sub..." in the body of your message. Leave the subject line blank.
• http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/htmlhelp: This is information about the new HTMLHelp Workshop software from Microsoft.
• http://www.blue-sky.com/webhelp: BlueSky makes RoboHelp and RoboHHTML software for online help development. This site lists some helpful tips for online help developers.
• http://www.workwrite.com: This compares help and html help systems. Very well received table at one of our SIG meetings! This is Cheryl Zuback's site. She helped write some online help books that have become our backbone resources. You can also find her presentation at the Winwriter conference here.
• http://www.winwriters.com: WinWriters company holds the mecca of all online help conferences, the WinWriter conference in February. Winwriters is an excellent organization for training on winhelp tools, design, and coding.
• http://www.kware.com: This is Mary Deaton's KnowWare Company. Excellent source of help information. Mary Deaton helped write another excellent book on online help development.

FrameMaker, RTF, & HTML

• http://www.quadralay.com: Quadralay Corp makes software that helps you convert Frame files to RTF files. People have given it quite a bit of praise.
• Using Text Insets in FrameMaker: This is a Frame document that explains how to use text insets and use cross references effectively between the inset and other documents, January 2003 (attached to this page, 90K).

Single Sourcing

• A document by Julio Vazquez explaining how to structure content for XML or single sourcing. (attached to this page, 56K)
  This article describes how an author can apply the DITA architecture when developing information for a product. It lists the information types defined in DITA and a reasonable approach for analyzing content to fit the types. The article does not teach the structure of the language but focuses on the concepts behind the architecture and how to change your paradigm to embrace the architecture. There are a few examples included that are based on the language as it stands today. (January 2003)

XML

• Powerpoint slides from presentation given by Lisa Pappas on XML. What Is XML? (attached , to this page, 615K)
• One of our SIG members gave us an article on XML and asked that we put it up here on our site. Here is an excerpt from Computer News, April 1998: "XML stylesheets are written using a subset of the Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSL), which was derived from a dialect of LISP... XML [provides] the ability to specify network-friendly languages perfectly adapted to the data they describe... Healthcare industry... and ...vendors in electronic data interchange...are also eyeing XML...There is no XML-capable browser yet... "

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