WebWorks Publisher 2000 is produced by a little company in Austin, Texas
called Quadralay. Quadralay fills an important niche in professional publishing: They let
FrameMaker users convert their documents into HTML and online help formats.
Unlike
RoboHELP, which lets you use Word and its own HTML Help creator to create online help
systems, WebWorks Publisher converts existing FrameMaker documents into help systems.
Despite a few minor flaws, the new 2000 version of WebWorks Publisher is a must-have for
FrameMaker users whose responsibilities include creating online help.
WebWorks Publisher 2000 (WWP) is
well-integrated into the Web, and you're first introduced to this concept when WWP
automatically brings up your browser, and if you're already online or your browser has an
automatic dialup feature, and goes to Quadralay's Web site so you can register online.
(This sure beats the dial-in feature for other program registrations--these never seem to
work for me.) When you press F1 for help, WWP automatically takes you to their online help
system using their own WebWorks HTML Help system.
Launch Pad
Creating a new help file is quick and easy with WWP's Project Launcher. The
first step is to select the type of help system you want to create. WWP has several
different help templates available, including WebWorks Help, WinHelp (for Windows 95 and
NT help systems), HTML Help (for Windows 98), Portable HTML, Dynamic HTML, or a blank
template (for building patches for integration into existing help systems). The Launcher
also shows you a list of available files that you've worked on and their directory paths
if you want to open an existing file instead. If you decide to start a new project, the
New Project Wizard appears after you select the type of help system in the Project
Launcher.
Figure 1. (Click on
the graphic to enlarge.) The New Project Wizard appears when
you want to start a new project.
The first step is to select the name of your
project, the folder you want to put it in on your hard disk, and the language you want the
help file in. The default is English, but you can also use Symbol or several Asian
languages. After you enter this information, the New Project Wizard asks you to select the
FrameMaker book or individual FrameMaker files to convert. If you have the FrameMaker+SGML
edition, you can tell WWP that there are SGML elements in the FrameMaker documents that
you want converted. If you don't want to convert any FrameMaker files yet, you can simply
leave the book/document field blank.
A Good Test
For this review, I decided to test WWP with a typical FrameMaker file. I
thought one of the sample FrameMaker projects would make for a good test, so I chose a
FrameMaker book file about ecology and had WWP convert the book into both WinHelp and HTML
Help projects, since they're the two formats that Windows uses. I wanted to see how well
WWP would create online help systems and how much work a user would have to do after the
online help was created.
After asking WWP to create the files, the program showed a table list of the
tags used in the FrameMaker document and their corresponding WWP tags used in the help
template. If you want a different WWP tag to correspond with the FrameMaker tag, you can
do so by clicking on the table row and selecting the WWP tag from the drop-down list
underneath the table. Once you select the new WWP tag, that new tag appears to the right
of the corresponding FrameMaker tag.
On my 266-MHz Pentium II with 64 MB of RAM (which is now at the low end of
new computer offerings these days), WWP took less than two minutes to create the HTML Help
files. WWP took about the same amount of time to create the WinHelp files. If you don't
have FrameMaker open, WWP will open FrameMaker so WWP can print the FrameMaker documents
to a PostScript file. Then the WebWorks Rasterizer translates the PostScript information
into the appropriate help files. (The only problem I had with this is that WWP made the
Rasterizer my default printer, which I didn't ask for. That's something I need to look
at.)
After WWP creates the files, you see a directory tree that contains all the files in your
project, starting with the FrameMaker files. If you click on the + sign next to the
FrameMaker file name, the tree expands to show the corresponding help file. If you
double-click the FrameMaker filename, WWP opens FrameMaker (if it's not open) so you can
work on the file. Other main folders in the tree include the support files, including the
help template file, and the actual help files that you want to work on.
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Figure 2. (Click on the graphic to enlarge.) The help file tree appears after you create a new project. 
When you open your draft help file, WWP
automatically opens up the Microsoft Help (or HTML Help) editor so you can edit and
compile the files. Like RoboHELP, Microsoft's Help editors report any problems with your
help files. With the HTML Help file I created straight from the FrameMaker document, I
found that most of the index entries didn't have links to other pages, and it didn't
create a table of contents. All I saw in the viewing pane was the first chapter in the
manual that looked similar to what there was in the FrameMaker document. WWP handled
conversion of tables and graphics well, but it didn't do well with numbered and bulleted
lists. The WinHelp document I compiled (again straight from the FrameMaker document) had
261 errors in it. All of them had the same error message: "This topic contains
keywords but no title."
Help for Help
The help system looks nice and it's certainly thorough. There are some
drawbacks to the help system, but some of them are offset by its benefits. The system can
sometimes be too thorough--for example, I wanted to see how to create contents in a help
system, but when I looked under C in the index, I didn't find the word contents. So, I
clicked the Search tab in the left-hand pane and entered contents. I received 66
responses. Fortunately, the exact topic I wanted was about two-thirds of the way down the
list. I'd rather have too many responses than too few, and I was happy to find exactly
what I wanted. Strangely enough, the word "contents" was in the list of search
responses but not in the index. I found the index to be very good overall, but you have to
scroll through the list to find what you want.
There are also plenty of illustrations that tell you exactly how to do
things, which is a nice touch. If you can't find the answer with all the material
available online, Quadralay's site has a list of frequently asked questions, lists ways to
reach technical support, has an online knowledge base, and will soon have online examples.
If you don't want to view the manual while you're online, you can download the manual in
PDF or HTML versions. This thorough approach to help means that you won't have any trouble
finding the support you need for using WWP.
Conclusion
By looking at my mock HTML Help file and the WebWorks online help system,
WebWorks produces some very attractive and useful help systems; they not only include a
contents and index, but a keyword search and a list of your favorite topics that you can
add to. It's also clear that WWP will not magically put together a perfect help system for
you--you have to teach WWP how to behave. You have to work with your FrameMaker documents
to make sure that WWP for proper conversion, and it takes some training. I only received a
30-day review version of WWP, so I didn't get to train with it as much as I would have
liked. But from what I've seen, WWP makes it as easy as possible for you to create
powerful online help systems on a variety of platforms from your FrameMaker documents.
Today, it's important for technical communicators to know a variety of
documentation products, including FrameMaker, and to be able to create documents in a
variety of formats. Adobe comes part of the way by bundling Acrobat with FrameMaker to
create online PDF documents. If you're a FrameMaker user, WebWorks Publisher is a
must-have product that fills an important niche. |
