Skip to main content


Eclipse Community Forums
Forum Search:

Search      Help    Register    Login    Home
Home » Eclipse Projects » Platform - User Assistance (UA) » General help documentation development question
General help documentation development question [message #472302] Wed, 06 February 2008 15:57 Go to next message
Pete Ellis is currently offline Pete EllisFriend
Messages: 85
Registered: July 2009
Member
Hello all,

We are looking to integrate help documentation into our Eclipse based tool.
We are searching for an efficient means of doing this that allows us to:
a) Develop and maintain our documentation in an efficient way (i.e., a
traditional word processor)
b) Obtain the HTML files at the level of granularity necessary to populate
the built-in Eclipse help services, including infopop content, and
c) Publish traditional paper documentation (in the form of manuals) that we
would optionally make available to our customers

As we are currently an MS Word house, that was my first area of
investigation... however it appears that MS Word has no native means of
breaking up a documents content into individual HTML files. Thus, a 100
page reference manual would be exported to a single giant HTML file, which
is of much less use in the Eclipse help environment.

So my questions are:

1) What techniques/products do others use to accomplish these goals?

2) What mechanism does the Eclipse organization use to author and deploy
its own help content?

Many thanks,
-Pete
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472306 is a reply to message #472302] Fri, 08 February 2008 00:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Chris Goldthorpe is currently offline Chris GoldthorpeFriend
Messages: 815
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
The Eclipse team just edits the files as HTML - we don't have a separate
documentation team so each of the development teams is responsible for
creating its own content. Having developers create the content has the
benefit that it is usually pretty accurate but the drawback is that the
documentation ends up getting written by a lot of different people who
have varied writing skills and limited time and the style is not always
consistent.

In Eclipse 3.4 there is a new TOC file editor which makes editing TOC
files very fast. File/New/User Assistance/Help Table of Contents will
create a new TOC and open the editor.

If you have a relatively small amount of documentation then any tool
that can edit HTML can work. If you have a lot of documentation to write
and you have dedicated tech writers you may want to consider a more
specialized tool such as DITA. I haven't used DITA much myself but I
know of tech writers who seem to like it.
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472308 is a reply to message #472302] Fri, 08 February 2008 08:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Francis Upton IV is currently offline Francis Upton IVFriend
Messages: 472
Registered: July 2009
Location: Oakland, CA
Senior Member
I have similar goals, and all of my documentation source is in DocBook.
With docbook you can generate just about anything (including Eclipse
help files). It has worked very well for me, and I have had my
documentation there for years, even before I migrated to eclipse, I used
to generate Java help from the docbook.

Pete Ellis wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We are looking to integrate help documentation into our Eclipse based tool.
> We are searching for an efficient means of doing this that allows us to:
> a) Develop and maintain our documentation in an efficient way (i.e., a
> traditional word processor)
> b) Obtain the HTML files at the level of granularity necessary to populate
> the built-in Eclipse help services, including infopop content, and
> c) Publish traditional paper documentation (in the form of manuals) that we
> would optionally make available to our customers
>
> As we are currently an MS Word house, that was my first area of
> investigation... however it appears that MS Word has no native means of
> breaking up a documents content into individual HTML files. Thus, a 100
> page reference manual would be exported to a single giant HTML file, which
> is of much less use in the Eclipse help environment.
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1) What techniques/products do others use to accomplish these goals?
>
> 2) What mechanism does the Eclipse organization use to author and deploy
> its own help content?
>
> Many thanks,
> -Pete
>
>
>


Re: General help documentation development question [message #472426 is a reply to message #472308] Wed, 02 April 2008 10:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Marcus is currently offline MarcusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hello,

Currently we try to convert our documentation in DocBook as well, cause we
like the possibility to generate easily any format we want to, especially
the eclipse help files. We already tested it, and it really worked fine.

Unfortunatly its not as easy to convert our current documentation (written
with tradtional word processors) to DocBook, as it is to convert from
DocBook to everything else.

How do you generate your DocBook files? Do you write your documentation
already in DocBook? If so, which Software can you recommend?
Are there any effective alternatives to DocBook to get the Eclipse Help
System files out of a traditional word processor?

Thanks in advance,
Marcus
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472429 is a reply to message #472426] Wed, 02 April 2008 15:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: nospam_kowalskilee.gmail.com

Hi Marcus,

You wrote "traditional word processors". Would you list which ones you
are focused on? I mean, is it Word or FrameMaker or what else?

In general, it will not be easy to convert from an unstructured document
environment to a structured document environment. However, if you are
using FrameMaker, there is a product called "Mif2Go" that people are
using today to go from their FrameMaker mif files to generate the
Eclipse help files.

If your traditional word processor is Word, there might be some
conversion tools available to go from Word to DITA XML (which is an XML
format comparable to DocBook). From DITA XML, you can go to Eclipse help
like you do from DocBook.

One thing to think about is whether you mean to do a one-time conversion
and take all your traditional-created files to DocBook, and then
continue from that point in time with DocBook *or* do you mean to
continue authoring in the traditional word processor and generate the
Eclipse help files at build times. The answer to that will guide what
tools will best suit your need.

Best regards,
Lee Anne

Marcus Storre wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Currently we try to convert our documentation in DocBook as well, cause
> we like the possibility to generate easily any format we want to,
> especially the eclipse help files. We already tested it, and it really
> worked fine.
>
> Unfortunatly its not as easy to convert our current documentation
> (written with tradtional word processors) to DocBook, as it is to
> convert from DocBook to everything else.
>
> How do you generate your DocBook files? Do you write your documentation
> already in DocBook? If so, which Software can you recommend? Are there
> any effective alternatives to DocBook to get the Eclipse Help System
> files out of a traditional word processor?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Marcus
>
>
>
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472431 is a reply to message #472429] Thu, 03 April 2008 11:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Marcus is currently offline MarcusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi Lee Anne,

thank you for your fast reply. We started to evaluate a process to
generate DocBooks from .odt files, since OpenOffice 2.3.1 already has an
implemented DocBook Filter. Unfortunately we did not really receive the
results we hoped for. We also “successful” converted sxw files, but we try
to avoid this format.

Our support is documenting in Word and MindManager, so we are looking for
a persistent solution to generate Eclipse Help Files (or other formats)
out of a .doc document. MindManager is able to export in .doc so a
suitable solution for Word would be as fine as it would be for
MindManager. If there is no pleasant way to handle this, a one
time-conversion and working with DocBook - Editors might be an
alternative, but so far we try to avoid this as well.

DITA seems to be a decent alternative to DocBook, and we will consider
this format to replace DocBook, if it is easier to generate a structured
document environment from it that fits our needs.

Do you might have any suggestions, what a decent way could look like for
generating DocBook/DITA from .doc or .odt?

Sincerely,
Marcus


Lee Anne wrote:

> Hi Marcus,

> You wrote "traditional word processors". Would you list which ones you
> are focused on? I mean, is it Word or FrameMaker or what else?

> In general, it will not be easy to convert from an unstructured document
> environment to a structured document environment. However, if you are
> using FrameMaker, there is a product called "Mif2Go" that people are
> using today to go from their FrameMaker mif files to generate the
> Eclipse help files.

> If your traditional word processor is Word, there might be some
> conversion tools available to go from Word to DITA XML (which is an XML
> format comparable to DocBook). From DITA XML, you can go to Eclipse help
> like you do from DocBook.

> One thing to think about is whether you mean to do a one-time conversion
> and take all your traditional-created files to DocBook, and then
> continue from that point in time with DocBook *or* do you mean to
> continue authoring in the traditional word processor and generate the
> Eclipse help files at build times. The answer to that will guide what
> tools will best suit your need.

> Best regards,
> Lee Anne
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472512 is a reply to message #472431] Fri, 04 April 2008 14:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: nospam_kowalskilee.gmail.com

Hi Marcus,

I did some sleuthing on the DITA YahooGroup and I found this company's
tool: Information Mapping's Content Mapper tool mentioned:
http://www.infomap.com/index.cfm/Software/ContentMapper
That page says it is a "Microsoft Word-based XML authoring tool" *and*
that it has been configured with both DocBook and DITA.

I also found this company's products mentioned related to Word and XML
and Word and DITA:
http://www.invisionresearch.com/products.html

It has two products that look promising for a goal of authoring in Word
and then getting DITA and/or DocBook output:

Xpress Author http://www.invisionresearch.com/xpress.html
XPress Author sounds like it is an add-on to Word, where you work in
Word and it maps to an XML DTD or Schema. From the page, it sounds like
it might work with either DocBook or DITA.

Xpress DITA Studio http://www.invisionresearch.com/dita.html
Xpress DITA Studio seems to be a combo of Xpress Author (Word + their
XML add-on) *and* the tooling oriented to DITA concepts (DITA maps, DITA
DTD/schema, etc)

Then I found this company's tool: Information Mapping's Content Mapper
tool: http://www.infomap.com/index.cfm/Software/ContentMapper
That page says it is a "Microsoft Word-based XML authoring tool".

FYI, there's an active group of DITA exploiters on a YahooGroup named
dita-users. The group's home is here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/
There are folks who are interested in a Word->DITA solution that
participate on that list, as well as people who are experienced in
DocBook also--so you'd benefit from tapping them as a resource.

This posting at the dita-users group mentions the pricing for both
In.vision products and Information Mapping's Content Mapper product:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/message/9051

I don't have experience with MindManager, so I cannot speak to that one.

Hope this helps!
Lee Anne


Marcus Storre wrote:
> Hi Lee Anne,
>
> thank you for your fast reply. We started to evaluate a process to
> generate DocBooks from .odt files, since OpenOffice 2.3.1 already has an
> implemented DocBook Filter. Unfortunately we did not really receive the
> results we hoped for. We also �successful� converted sxw files, but we
> try to avoid this format.
>
> Our support is documenting in Word and MindManager, so we are looking
> for a persistent solution to generate Eclipse Help Files (or other
> formats) out of a .doc document. MindManager is able to export in .doc
> so a suitable solution for Word would be as fine as it would be for
> MindManager. If there is no pleasant way to handle this, a one
> time-conversion and working with DocBook - Editors might be an
> alternative, but so far we try to avoid this as well.
>
> DITA seems to be a decent alternative to DocBook, and we will consider
> this format to replace DocBook, if it is easier to generate a structured
> document environment from it that fits our needs.
>
> Do you might have any suggestions, what a decent way could look like for
> generating DocBook/DITA from .doc or .odt?
>
> Sincerely,
> Marcus
>
>
> Lee Anne wrote:
>
>> Hi Marcus,
>
>> You wrote "traditional word processors". Would you list which ones you
>> are focused on? I mean, is it Word or FrameMaker or what else?
>
>> In general, it will not be easy to convert from an unstructured
>> document environment to a structured document environment. However, if
>> you are using FrameMaker, there is a product called "Mif2Go" that
>> people are using today to go from their FrameMaker mif files to
>> generate the Eclipse help files.
>
>> If your traditional word processor is Word, there might be some
>> conversion tools available to go from Word to DITA XML (which is an
>> XML format comparable to DocBook). From DITA XML, you can go to
>> Eclipse help like you do from DocBook.
>
>> One thing to think about is whether you mean to do a one-time
>> conversion and take all your traditional-created files to DocBook, and
>> then continue from that point in time with DocBook *or* do you mean to
>> continue authoring in the traditional word processor and generate the
>> Eclipse help files at build times. The answer to that will guide what
>> tools will best suit your need.
>
>> Best regards,
>> Lee Anne
>
>
>
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472517 is a reply to message #472431] Mon, 07 April 2008 19:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Desjardins is currently offline Peter DesjardinsFriend
Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Marcus Storre wrote:

> Do you might have any suggestions, what a decent way could look like
> for generating DocBook/DITA from .doc or .odt?

I've been using Upcast to convert MS Word documents to DocBook. After
converting a document, there is still some clean-up to do. However, I
have been satisfied with the tool.

http://www.infinity-loop.de/products/upcast/

Peter
Re: General help documentation development question [message #472520 is a reply to message #472517] Tue, 08 April 2008 12:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Marcus is currently offline MarcusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
We gonna try to find the best tool out of these for us. Thanks to both of
you for your detailed answers.
Re: General help documentation development question [message #504901 is a reply to message #472302] Wed, 23 December 2009 08:39 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Alexej Spas is currently offline Alexej SpasFriend
Messages: 22
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi all,

Please take a look on documentation management tool called DITAworks (www.ditaworks.com)

This is an Eclipse based tool that manages documentation in single source way using DITA standard. It addresses all requirements discussed in this post.

It also has set of special features for producing Eclipse help and integration with RCP application and RCP application development process. Take a look on this blog post for more details:

http://support.ditaworks.com/features/eclipse-help-support-w ith-ditaworks/

hope this helps,
Alexej
Re: General help documentation development questionhttp://www.peterfriese.de/advanced-wikitext/ [message #505098 is a reply to message #472302] Sat, 26 December 2009 20:00 Go to previous message
Miles Parker is currently offline Miles ParkerFriend
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
A key technology that noone has mentioned here are the Mylyn Wikitext toolset. There are ant targets that allow the creation of Eclipse docs, docbook, pdf, DITA, and others from very simple mediawiki or textile files. See for example: http://www.peterfriese.de/advanced-wikitext/.
Re: General help documentation development question [message #609395 is a reply to message #472302] Fri, 08 February 2008 00:42 Go to previous message
Chris Goldthorpe is currently offline Chris GoldthorpeFriend
Messages: 815
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
The Eclipse team just edits the files as HTML - we don't have a separate
documentation team so each of the development teams is responsible for
creating its own content. Having developers create the content has the
benefit that it is usually pretty accurate but the drawback is that the
documentation ends up getting written by a lot of different people who
have varied writing skills and limited time and the style is not always
consistent.

In Eclipse 3.4 there is a new TOC file editor which makes editing TOC
files very fast. File/New/User Assistance/Help Table of Contents will
create a new TOC and open the editor.

If you have a relatively small amount of documentation then any tool
that can edit HTML can work. If you have a lot of documentation to write
and you have dedicated tech writers you may want to consider a more
specialized tool such as DITA. I haven't used DITA much myself but I
know of tech writers who seem to like it.
Re: General help documentation development question [message #609399 is a reply to message #472302] Fri, 08 February 2008 08:32 Go to previous message
Francis Upton IV is currently offline Francis Upton IVFriend
Messages: 472
Registered: July 2009
Location: Oakland, CA
Senior Member
I have similar goals, and all of my documentation source is in DocBook.
With docbook you can generate just about anything (including Eclipse
help files). It has worked very well for me, and I have had my
documentation there for years, even before I migrated to eclipse, I used
to generate Java help from the docbook.

Pete Ellis wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> We are looking to integrate help documentation into our Eclipse based tool.
> We are searching for an efficient means of doing this that allows us to:
> a) Develop and maintain our documentation in an efficient way (i.e., a
> traditional word processor)
> b) Obtain the HTML files at the level of granularity necessary to populate
> the built-in Eclipse help services, including infopop content, and
> c) Publish traditional paper documentation (in the form of manuals) that we
> would optionally make available to our customers
>
> As we are currently an MS Word house, that was my first area of
> investigation... however it appears that MS Word has no native means of
> breaking up a documents content into individual HTML files. Thus, a 100
> page reference manual would be exported to a single giant HTML file, which
> is of much less use in the Eclipse help environment.
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1) What techniques/products do others use to accomplish these goals?
>
> 2) What mechanism does the Eclipse organization use to author and deploy
> its own help content?
>
> Many thanks,
> -Pete
>
>
>


Re: General help documentation development question [message #611100 is a reply to message #472308] Wed, 02 April 2008 10:38 Go to previous message
Marcus is currently offline MarcusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hello,

Currently we try to convert our documentation in DocBook as well, cause we
like the possibility to generate easily any format we want to, especially
the eclipse help files. We already tested it, and it really worked fine.

Unfortunatly its not as easy to convert our current documentation (written
with tradtional word processors) to DocBook, as it is to convert from
DocBook to everything else.

How do you generate your DocBook files? Do you write your documentation
already in DocBook? If so, which Software can you recommend?
Are there any effective alternatives to DocBook to get the Eclipse Help
System files out of a traditional word processor?

Thanks in advance,
Marcus
Re: General help documentation development question [message #611102 is a reply to message #472426] Wed, 02 April 2008 15:41 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: nospam_kowalskilee.gmail.com

Hi Marcus,

You wrote "traditional word processors". Would you list which ones you
are focused on? I mean, is it Word or FrameMaker or what else?

In general, it will not be easy to convert from an unstructured document
environment to a structured document environment. However, if you are
using FrameMaker, there is a product called "Mif2Go" that people are
using today to go from their FrameMaker mif files to generate the
Eclipse help files.

If your traditional word processor is Word, there might be some
conversion tools available to go from Word to DITA XML (which is an XML
format comparable to DocBook). From DITA XML, you can go to Eclipse help
like you do from DocBook.

One thing to think about is whether you mean to do a one-time conversion
and take all your traditional-created files to DocBook, and then
continue from that point in time with DocBook *or* do you mean to
continue authoring in the traditional word processor and generate the
Eclipse help files at build times. The answer to that will guide what
tools will best suit your need.

Best regards,
Lee Anne

Marcus Storre wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Currently we try to convert our documentation in DocBook as well, cause
> we like the possibility to generate easily any format we want to,
> especially the eclipse help files. We already tested it, and it really
> worked fine.
>
> Unfortunatly its not as easy to convert our current documentation
> (written with tradtional word processors) to DocBook, as it is to
> convert from DocBook to everything else.
>
> How do you generate your DocBook files? Do you write your documentation
> already in DocBook? If so, which Software can you recommend? Are there
> any effective alternatives to DocBook to get the Eclipse Help System
> files out of a traditional word processor?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Marcus
>
>
>
Re: General help documentation development question [message #611104 is a reply to message #472429] Thu, 03 April 2008 11:08 Go to previous message
Marcus is currently offline MarcusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi Lee Anne,

thank you for your fast reply. We started to evaluate a process to
generate DocBooks from .odt files, since OpenOffice 2.3.1 already has an
implemented DocBook Filter. Unfortunately we did not really receive the
results we hoped for. We also “successful” converted sxw files, but we try
to avoid this format.

Our support is documenting in Word and MindManager, so we are looking for
a persistent solution to generate Eclipse Help Files (or other formats)
out of a .doc document. MindManager is able to export in .doc so a
suitable solution for Word would be as fine as it would be for
MindManager. If there is no pleasant way to handle this, a one
time-conversion and working with DocBook - Editors might be an
alternative, but so far we try to avoid this as well.

DITA seems to be a decent alternative to DocBook, and we will consider
this format to replace DocBook, if it is easier to generate a structured
document environment from it that fits our needs.

Do you might have any suggestions, what a decent way could look like for
generating DocBook/DITA from .doc or .odt?

Sincerely,
Marcus


Lee Anne wrote:

> Hi Marcus,

> You wrote "traditional word processors". Would you list which ones you
> are focused on? I mean, is it Word or FrameMaker or what else?

> In general, it will not be easy to convert from an unstructured document
> environment to a structured document environment. However, if you are
> using FrameMaker, there is a product called "Mif2Go" that people are
> using today to go from their FrameMaker mif files to generate the
> Eclipse help files.

> If your traditional word processor is Word, there might be some
> conversion tools available to go from Word to DITA XML (which is an XML
> format comparable to DocBook). From DITA XML, you can go to Eclipse help
> like you do from DocBook.

> One thing to think about is whether you mean to do a one-time conversion
> and take all your traditional-created files to DocBook, and then
> continue from that point in time with DocBook *or* do you mean to
> continue authoring in the traditional word processor and generate the
> Eclipse help files at build times. The answer to that will guide what
> tools will best suit your need.

> Best regards,
> Lee Anne
Re: General help documentation development question [message #611123 is a reply to message #472431] Fri, 04 April 2008 14:56 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: nospam_kowalskilee.gmail.com

Hi Marcus,

I did some sleuthing on the DITA YahooGroup and I found this company's
tool: Information Mapping's Content Mapper tool mentioned:
http://www.infomap.com/index.cfm/Software/ContentMapper
That page says it is a "Microsoft Word-based XML authoring tool" *and*
that it has been configured with both DocBook and DITA.

I also found this company's products mentioned related to Word and XML
and Word and DITA:
http://www.invisionresearch.com/products.html

It has two products that look promising for a goal of authoring in Word
and then getting DITA and/or DocBook output:

Xpress Author http://www.invisionresearch.com/xpress.html
XPress Author sounds like it is an add-on to Word, where you work in
Word and it maps to an XML DTD or Schema. From the page, it sounds like
it might work with either DocBook or DITA.

Xpress DITA Studio http://www.invisionresearch.com/dita.html
Xpress DITA Studio seems to be a combo of Xpress Author (Word + their
XML add-on) *and* the tooling oriented to DITA concepts (DITA maps, DITA
DTD/schema, etc)

Then I found this company's tool: Information Mapping's Content Mapper
tool: http://www.infomap.com/index.cfm/Software/ContentMapper
That page says it is a "Microsoft Word-based XML authoring tool".

FYI, there's an active group of DITA exploiters on a YahooGroup named
dita-users. The group's home is here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/
There are folks who are interested in a Word->DITA solution that
participate on that list, as well as people who are experienced in
DocBook also--so you'd benefit from tapping them as a resource.

This posting at the dita-users group mentions the pricing for both
In.vision products and Information Mapping's Content Mapper product:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users/message/9051

I don't have experience with MindManager, so I cannot speak to that one.

Hope this helps!
Lee Anne


Marcus Storre wrote:
> Hi Lee Anne,
>
> thank you for your fast reply. We started to evaluate a process to
> generate DocBooks from .odt files, since OpenOffice 2.3.1 already has an
> implemented DocBook Filter. Unfortunately we did not really receive the
> results we hoped for. We also �successful� converted sxw files, but we
> try to avoid this format.
>
> Our support is documenting in Word and MindManager, so we are looking
> for a persistent solution to generate Eclipse Help Files (or other
> formats) out of a .doc document. MindManager is able to export in .doc
> so a suitable solution for Word would be as fine as it would be for
> MindManager. If there is no pleasant way to handle this, a one
> time-conversion and working with DocBook - Editors might be an
> alternative, but so far we try to avoid this as well.
>
> DITA seems to be a decent alternative to DocBook, and we will consider
> this format to replace DocBook, if it is easier to generate a structured
> document environment from it that fits our needs.
>
> Do you might have any suggestions, what a decent way could look like for
> generating DocBook/DITA from .doc or .odt?
>
> Sincerely,
> Marcus
>
>
> Lee Anne wrote:
>
>> Hi Marcus,
>
>> You wrote "traditional word processors". Would you list which ones you
>> are focused on? I mean, is it Word or FrameMaker or what else?
>
>> In general, it will not be easy to convert from an unstructured
>> document environment to a structured document environment. However, if
>> you are using FrameMaker, there is a product called "Mif2Go" that
>> people are using today to go from their FrameMaker mif files to
>> generate the Eclipse help files.
>
>> If your traditional word processor is Word, there might be some
>> conversion tools available to go from Word to DITA XML (which is an
>> XML format comparable to DocBook). From DITA XML, you can go to
>> Eclipse help like you do from DocBook.
>
>> One thing to think about is whether you mean to do a one-time
>> conversion and take all your traditional-created files to DocBook, and
>> then continue from that point in time with DocBook *or* do you mean to
>> continue authoring in the traditional word processor and generate the
>> Eclipse help files at build times. The answer to that will guide what
>> tools will best suit your need.
>
>> Best regards,
>> Lee Anne
>
>
>
Re: General help documentation development question [message #611135 is a reply to message #472431] Mon, 07 April 2008 19:01 Go to previous message
Peter Desjardins is currently offline Peter DesjardinsFriend
Messages: 21
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Marcus Storre wrote:

> Do you might have any suggestions, what a decent way could look like
> for generating DocBook/DITA from .doc or .odt?

I've been using Upcast to convert MS Word documents to DocBook. After
converting a document, there is still some clean-up to do. However, I
have been satisfied with the tool.

http://www.infinity-loop.de/products/upcast/

Peter
Re: General help documentation development question [message #611140 is a reply to message #472517] Tue, 08 April 2008 12:32 Go to previous message
Marcus is currently offline MarcusFriend
Messages: 16
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
We gonna try to find the best tool out of these for us. Thanks to both of
you for your detailed answers.
Re: General help documentation development question [message #623810 is a reply to message #472302] Wed, 23 December 2009 08:39 Go to previous message
Alexej Spas is currently offline Alexej SpasFriend
Messages: 22
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
Hi all,

Please take a look on http://www.ditaworks.com/

This is an Eclipse based tool that manages documentation in single source way using DITA standard. It addresses all requirements discussed in this post.

It also has set of special features for producing Eclipse help and integration with RCP application and RCP application development process. Take a look on this blog post for more details:

http://support.ditaworks.com/features/eclipse-help-support-w ith-ditaworks/

hope this helps,
Alexej
Re: General help documentation development questionhttp://www.peterfriese.de/advanced-wikitext/ [message #623822 is a reply to message #472302] Sat, 26 December 2009 20:00 Go to previous message
Miles Parker is currently offline Miles ParkerFriend
Messages: 1341
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
A key technology that noone has mentioned here are the Mylyn Wikitext toolset. There are ant targets that allow the creation of Eclipse docs, docbook, pdf, DITA, and others from very simple mediawiki or textile files. See for example: http://www.peterfriese.de/advanced-wikitext/
Previous Topic:Re: help contexts question
Next Topic:Help View customization?
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Fri Mar 29 06:26:05 GMT 2024

Powered by FUDForum. Page generated in 0.05219 seconds
.:: Contact :: Home ::.

Powered by: FUDforum 3.0.2.
Copyright ©2001-2010 FUDforum Bulletin Board Software

Back to the top