If there's only one writer and not enough time to do everything, detailed release notes don't seem like the best choice.
Seems like an opportunity for reuse. I'm a solo tech writer and Paligo allows me to manage reuse in such a way that I'm more productive. Flare over RoboHelp. Its FrameMaker import is quite clean and reuse is very simple compared with FrameMaker. On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 2:43 PM, Pat Christenson <pat.christen...@morningstar.com> wrote: > My company has a very large suite of products and I'm the only tech writer. > Software is developed in an agile environment, with some products releasing > new features every 2 weeks. The largest product updates quarterly. I can > easily spend almost a month on its release notes. We are using FrameMaker and > publishing as a PDF. > > In addition to keeping up with release notes (which are very detailed, if I > didn't mention that), I'm supposed to be writing user & admin guides for the > sub-products. The ones we have are hopelessly out-of-date. > > With all this going on, by the time I finish a user guide, it is soon > out-of-date and there just isn't time to transfer material from release notes > to the user guide, repaginate, etc. and post it. > > My team director and I are trying to come up with a more efficient way of > getting this information to the user in a timely way and write much, much > shorter release notes. > > At this point, we're leaning towards the following: > > 1. Instead of long, detailed user guides, write shorter QuickStart guides, > covering the basics. Once the user has absorbed this, they can go to the > product's searchable Help to find info on a specific topic. (No one reads a > 75+ page user guide, right? They read enough to get started and then search > for info as they need it.) > 2. Make release notes very brief-one or two sentences describing a > new/enhanced feature and a couple of keywords so they can search the product > help for the details. > > Although several of our products have very basic Help, there is nothing in > place like we're thinking of. > > So long story short: > > > * Are you producing timely documentation within an agile software > development environment? If so, how and is it working well? > * Is anyone doing something like what we're thinking of? > * What are your recommendations for tools? FrameMaker-to-Robohelp? Give > up on Frame and write in Robohelp? Something else? > * Can you quickly add new material (topics & steps) to an existing Help > system? > > I developed a couple of Help systems years ago, using FrameMaker and > Webworks. I'm not sure if that qualifies me as a newbie since so much time > has gone by. > > I will appreciate ALL your recommendations, whether sent to me privately or > posted on the list. > > P.S. Please don't recommend structure. There's no way we're going down that > road for only one tech writer. > > Pat Christenson _______________________________________________ This message is from the Framers mailing list Send messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com Visit the list's homepage at http://www.frameusers.com Archives located at http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/ Subscribe and unsubscribe at http://lists.frameusers.com/listinfo.cgi/framers-frameusers.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com
