Stimulus Online

JAN/FEB 1999
   Competition Entries
The chapter's Technical Publications and Online Communications competitions are over for another year. Now it's on ...  read more.

   Making sense of technical editing
There are only a few technical communications degree programs offered in Canada. I am working on getting a degree ...  read more.

   HELP to HTML
If your manager is like many of the uninitiated in the realm of documentation and HTML, you've probably already been given ...  read more.

   1999-2000 Scholarship Program
The Society for Technical Communication is pleased to announce its 1999-2000 Scholarship Program. Since 1971, STC has fostered the ...  read more.

   What the Hell? - Humour
A tech writer dies and arrives in Hell, where Satan growls, "I gotta escort these other sinners into the pit, lady. Take a seat and wait ...  read more.

Get some help with Help

by Lynda Simons Extra!

(Lynda is our chapter's President. She is currently teaching in the Technical Writer diploma program at Algonquin College.)

   Working with online Help, it often seems that if you know the technology, it must be obsolete. No smug sense of achievement for any of us for finally nailing WinHelp: as Bill Burns points out on page 4, it's time to move on again.

Have you ever wondered how your colleagues handle online Help? Are they still using WinHelp or have they gone over to HTML or XML? Are they using SGML? What about JavaHelp? Do they write separate documents for printed and online Help, or do they single-source? And if so, how? What technologies and tools do they use?

At the January STC meeting, you can get answers to some of these questions, and maybe to questions you haven't thought to ask yet.
A panel discussion
At our panel discussion in January, each panel member will present for five minutes on some aspect of online help with which they have had experience. Then you, the audience, will be invited to ask questions and share your own experiences with online Help. This way we can share our experiences and learn from each other's successes and, perhaps more valuably, mistakes and misfortunes.
The panelists
So far (I'm still working on it), six local practitioners have graciously agreed to sit on the panel:

Mark Baker, Manager, Technical Communications at OmniMark Technologies Inc., will focus on what he calls "component-based information development" which OmniMark uses to create a single source of information for many types of output, including online Help.

(Get some help with help) ...  read more.