🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi Deanna,

You request is very open-ended, and I understand completely. Let me try to summarize my thoughts on this without going too long, or drifting into a structure rant (probably inevitable).

When you move to structured authoring, you are making a step up in technology, not just changing how you do things. It is a time-consuming step, no doubt, but so is any leap forward... so I'd whole-heartedly encourage you to pursue it. If you don't do it now, I sincerely believe that you will have to eventually, and you'll find no friendlier structured authoring tool than Frame.

Like any move forward, you will have to change how you think about writing somewhat. You are still a writer, but the logistics of getting the words published are somewhat different. But it's an improvement, and that's what will encourage you to stay with it. It's like giving up the horse and learning to drive a car - I imagine that many folks back in the day resisted the car, thinking that the horse was good enough. Indeed, they'll both get you to the same place eventually, but I'd certainly rather use the car. The analogy is, then, unstructured Frame is the horse, and structured Frame is the car.

When you move from the horse to the car, you might have one thing in mind that will benefit you. Maybe you just want to go faster. Indeed, the car lets you go faster. But once you have the car, you start noticing possibilities for other things... radios, back seats, air conditioning, heat, headlights... all things that are made possible because of the sheer leap forward in technology and improved architecture of the vehicle.

Structured Frame is the same way. You might think it can help with some particular need. But once you get into it, you start noticing more and more things it can do, or you could make it do. It is a technological platform from which you can go very far indeed, limited mostly by your imagination alone.

So, when you mention developing online help specifically, the answer can be yes, but that isn't a reason to go to structured Frame alone. Quite frankly, if online help is all you need, using a product like WebWorks with unstructured Frame would be more efficient, at least in the short term. But there are many, many more benefits to going structured, many of which you'll never be able to truly realize until you have a mature structural workflow in place. That's why it is tough to quantify them, although I have tried and would continue to try if requested.

I would highly recommend, then, that you continue this venture, but not necessarily for the online help aspect (unless there's some level of complexity to your help that I don't know). I'd also encourage you to be wary of those who relentlessly dispute the value of the structured interface... having once been an unstructured author myself, they sound to me like those staunch Word advocates who will never accept FrameMaker, no matter what you tell them. Don't be the one who shuns technological advances because they take time to learn... it will put you one step closer to making your kids dial the cell phone for you because you can't figure it out :)

Having said all that, I'd never dispute that there is an investment in time and energy to get it figured out. If the Adobe documentation seems insufficient, try a third-party book, such as those offered by Sarah O'Keefe at <http://www.scriptorium.com> . I've heard very good things about her book, although I haven't used them personally. Sarah is not just a structure guru, she is someone who really understands the inherent value that structure brings. I think you could really use a grounds-up approach such as hers, and then questions such as "use a template" vs. "write an EDD" will fall into place themselves. (And, her samples are good, more so than the worthless files that come with Frame)

There. I need to quit now. But as you can see, I hardly tire of talking about structured Frame. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them here or email be directly. I am happy to help as I am able, because I really believe this product is the best that has ever been for the average writer, and the true secrets of its power have been locked up in the structured interface, where some fear to tread. But needlessly so.

Russ