Documentation creation tool?

At 11:12 -0700 UTC, on 2009-06-03, Kirk McElhearn wrote:

> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation

<http://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki>


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

On 4-Jun-2009, at 01:23, Adam Engst wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:12 PM, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmcelhearn.com>
> wrote:
>> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation,
>> similar
>> to what Apple has:
>
> Darned if I can construct a search that will show more, but I peeked
> at the page source and found this META tag. What's Gutenberg, do you
> suppose? Proprietary tool?

Hmm... I thought Gutenberg was a LaTeX => HTML tool, but now I can't
find why I thought that. Perhaps I got it mixed up with GutenMark
(which now that I look at it is stupidly cool)?

I did find this on Google

<http://www.cpantesters.org/distro/A/Apple-UserPubs-Gutenberg.html>

On Jun 4, 2009, at 11:39 PM, Sander Tekelenburg wrote:

>> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation
>
> <http://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki>

Thanks, but a wiki is not good, for a number of reasons (notably the
need to localize the documentation).


Kirk

On Jun 5, 2009, at 2:13 AM, LuKreme wrote:

> On 4-Jun-2009, at 01:23, Adam Engst wrote:
>> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:12 PM, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmcelhearn.com>
>> wrote:
>>> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation,
>>> similar
>>> to what Apple has:
>>
>> Darned if I can construct a search that will show more, but I peeked
>> at the page source and found this META tag. What's Gutenberg, do you
>> suppose? Proprietary tool?
>
> Hmm... I thought Gutenberg was a LaTeX => HTML tool, but now I can't
> find why I thought that. Perhaps I got it mixed up with GutenMark
> (which now that I look at it is stupidly cool)?
>
> I did find this on Google
>
> <http://www.cpantesters.org/distro/A/Apple-UserPubs-Gutenberg.html>
>

Click on that link, and you'll find there's nothing actually there.
The perl module doesn't seem to exist any more.

A search at cpan.org didn't turn up anything too useful for
"Gutenberg". There's lots of stuff on CPAN under "Documentation",
although most is for converting to and from perl's own POD format.

At the bottom of http://manybooks.net/about/ there's a list of
conversion tools that the Manybooks owner uses.

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 3:23 AM, Adam Engst <acetidbits.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:12 PM, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmcelhearn.com> wrote:
>> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation, similar
>> to what Apple has:
>
> Darned if I can construct a search that will show more, but I peeked
> at the page source and found this META tag. What's Gutenberg, do you
> suppose? Proprietary tool?
>
> <meta id="Generator" name="Generator" content="Gutenberg"/>

My source at Apple says it's an internal XML-based document production
tool. Oh well...

cheers... -Adam

On Jun 6, 2009, at 9:24 AM, Adam Engst wrote:

>>> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation,
>>> similar
>>> to what Apple has:
>>
>> Darned if I can construct a search that will show more, but I peeked
>> at the page source and found this META tag. What's Gutenberg, do you
>> suppose? Proprietary tool?
>>
>> <meta id="Generator" name="Generator" content="Gutenberg"/>
>
> My source at Apple says it's an internal XML-based document production
> tool. Oh well...

Rats. Thanks for asking, though.


Kirk

--On June 6, 2009 12:24:41 AM -0700 Adam Engst <acetidbits.com> wrote:

>> Darned if I can construct a search that will show more, but I peeked
>> at the page source and found this META tag. What's Gutenberg, do you
>> suppose? Proprietary tool?
>>
>> <meta id="Generator" name="Generator" content="Gutenberg"/>
>
> My source at Apple says it's an internal XML-based document production
> tool. Oh well...

didn't keynote start out as an internal tool? Perhaps this will see the
light of day someday too, probably as a pro level app so as not to cut into
Pages sales.

At 11:12 AM -0700 6/3/09, Kirk McElhearn wrote:
>I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation, similar
>to what Apple has:

Last I heard, Apple was *still* using FrameMaker, within the Classic
environment, on an army of warehoused G5s running Tiger.

--
Andrew Laurence
atlaurenuci.edu

On 6-Jun-2009, at 15:25, Andrew Laurence wrote:
> Last I heard, Apple was *still* using FrameMaker, within the Classic
> environment, on an army of warehoused G5s running Tiger.

Not surprising. Nothing does what Framemaker did. Nothing comes CLOSE
to what Framemaker did.

I have noticed that they not only use FrameMaker, but it is an old version (6), the latest MacOS 9 version is 7. I used FrameMaker for years, it was superior to all other word processing and page lay-out applications. Mellel is the current application that is closest to FrameMaker, and in many respects it is far better, but it doesn't do indexing yet. Recently Apple uses InDesign CS3 to produce the iWork manuals, Adobe wants InDesign to take over FrameMaker's market. Pages lacks the ability to produce an index, which is the only missing feature required in the manuals, but Pages is more cumbersome than FrameMaker or Mellel. -cheers, arent

Perhaps this is how it is done:

Gutenberg Publishing SystemŪ

<http://www.seattlepub.com/products>

Could someone give some more details as to what Framemaker (and Mellel) can do that other software can't?

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 11:13 PM, Kirk McElhearn <kirkmcelhearn.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> I'm looking for a tool that will help me create documentation

FWIW, Create can generate CSS-based HTML linked documents like this:

http://www.gracion.com/enclose/help/Home.html

The table of contents is automatically generated (per page, just flat
list).  All inter-page links are created by entering a page number.
You could very possibly get it to display the contents on the side.
It's no FrameMaker but it does a lot!

http://www.stone.com/Create/

--Paul Collins

On 12-jun-2009, at 0:31, ricklavin2001 wrote:

> Could someone give some more details as to what Framemaker (and
> Mellel) can do that other software can't?


FrameMaker is purpose-built for creating long documents. It has both
the features and the stability you need for this: 2000-page books are
no problem for FrameMaker.
It separates the content from the layout while still remaining
WYSIWYG. You can easily change the entire layout of your book without
doing anything irreversible. You still have full control of the
layout, but you can set it up so that you can create a layout once
and never have to worry about that again. No more last-minute futzing
to get a document to display correctly.
It allows you to create several books in one: you can display or hide
content, e.g. you can create the user manuals for a set of related
products from a single set of source documents.
FrameMaker is easily extensible on several levels, so you can
integrate it with whatever workflow you want.


Harro de Jong

You can actually create something vaguely similar to the Apple documentation mentioned in the initial message using Circus Ponies Notebook. In my experience, it's rather unstable software, and you also have to bear in mind that it's something of a jack of all trades, but it might be worth taking a look at.

(Thanks to Harro for describing Framemaker.)

On 16 Jun 2009, at 22:52, Harro de Jong wrote:

> FrameMaker is purpose-built for creating long documents. It has both
> the features and the stability you need for this: 2000-page books are
> no problem for FrameMaker.
> It separates the content from the layout while still remaining
> WYSIWYG. You can easily change the entire layout of your book without
> doing anything irreversible. You still have full control of the
> layout, but you can set it up so that you can create a layout once
> and never have to worry about that again. No more last-minute futzing
> to get a document to display correctly.
> It allows you to create several books in one: you can display or hide
> content, e.g. you can create the user manuals for a set of related
> products from a single set of source documents.
> FrameMaker is easily extensible on several levels, so you can
> integrate it with whatever workflow you want.

Wow, this description makes it sound like LaTeX with TeXShop to me :-)

--e.

On 17/6/2009 7:27 PM, Enrico Franconi at franconiinf.unibz.it spake thus:

> Wow, this description makes it sound like LaTeX with TeXShop to me :-)

That's a pretty accurate characterisation, and I've had it described to me
that way more than once by devotees: LaTeX with a decent GUI and without the
crufty bits. I guess the only thing missing might be the ability to easily
extend the environment (as you would with TeX/LaTeX macros, i.e., the crufty
bits ;)

--
=Nigel Stanger

On or about 6/17/09 12:27 AM, thus spake "Enrico Franconi"
<franconiinf.unibz.it>:

> On 16 Jun 2009, at 22:52, Harro de Jong wrote:
>
>> FrameMaker is purpose-built for creating long documents. It has both
>> the features and the stability you need for this: 2000-page books are
>> no problem for FrameMaker.
>> It separates the content from the layout while still remaining
>> WYSIWYG. You can easily change the entire layout of your book without
>> doing anything irreversible. You still have full control of the
>> layout, but you can set it up so that you can create a layout once
>> and never have to worry about that again. No more last-minute futzing
>> to get a document to display correctly.
>> It allows you to create several books in one: you can display or hide
>> content, e.g. you can create the user manuals for a set of related
>> products from a single set of source documents.
>> FrameMaker is easily extensible on several levels, so you can
>> integrate it with whatever workflow you want.
>
> Wow, this description makes it sound like LaTeX with TeXShop to me :-)

:) It is also a terrific XML editor. All my XXX: The Definitive Guide books
for O'Reilly were written directly in FrameMaker. Unfortunately it is
Classic-only and not maintained. The amusing thing is that InDesign's recent
improvements are basically things that make it more similar to FrameMaker;
it's like they're going, "Hmmm, do you think maybe FrameMaker had this right
after all?" If you wait another ten years, perhaps InDesign will *be*
FrameMaker. m.

At 16:27 -0700 2009.06.17, Matt Neuburg wrote:

> The amusing thing is that InDesign's recent
>improvements are basically things that make it more similar to FrameMaker;
>it's like they're going, "Hmmm, do you think maybe FrameMaker had this right
>after all?" If you wait another ten years, perhaps InDesign will *be*
>FrameMaker. m.

Yes, but in the mean time, what is there that will read my Frame
files and retain not just the text but the formatting?

BTW -- I suspect that Frame is maintained just fine on Windows. The
problem is that Adobe stopped supporting it on the Mac. The last
upgrade was in 2002.

Art Evans

Op Vr, 19 juni, 2009 12:45 pm schreef Arthur Evans Jr:
> At 16:27 -0700 2009.06.17, Matt Neuburg wrote:
>
>
>> The amusing thing is that InDesign's recent
>> improvements are basically things that make it more similar to
>> FrameMaker;
>> it's like they're going, "Hmmm, do you think maybe FrameMaker had this
>> right after all?" If you wait another ten years, perhaps InDesign will
>> *be*
>> FrameMaker. m.
>>
>
> Yes, but in the mean time, what is there that will read my Frame
> files and retain not just the text but the formatting?

Not much that I know of. FrameMaker files can be converted (within Frame)
to Word. Especially when you use Mif2Go (works only on Windows,
unfortunately), the conversion is pretty good.

> BTW -- I suspect that Frame is maintained just fine on Windows. The
> problem is that Adobe stopped supporting it on the Mac. The last upgrade
> was in 2002.

It seems Adobe is of two minds about FrameMaker. At one point their
intention was to replace Frame with InDesign, but recently the code has
been moved to India and given a new lease on life (witness FM 9.0, which
has significant changes, after years of minor revisions).

Harro de Jong