ITauthor

"The frustrating thing is that most XML tools have been designed for programmers and don't fit well with writers, or they are extremely expensive and available only to those with large 'Enterprise' level budgets." I didn't write this (although I might have) - it's from an "open letter to the technical communications community" by Mike Hamilton, former product manager of RoboHelp and now vice president of product management at MadCap Software. I'd never heard of MadCap Software until this morning, when a Google Alert I have set up to look for articles about FrameMaker directed me to this press release at biz.yahoo.com. MadCap make heavy play of the fact that some of the founders of this new company used to work on RoboHelp. They are targeting folks like me: technical writers who use RoboHelp and FrameMaker and who would like to be using XML if it wasn't such a faff to set up given the currently available authoring tools. MadCap's aim is: "to do the same thing for XML authoring that RoboHelp did first for RTF authoring and later for HTML authoring." Everything they mention on their web site sounds good. They obviously know technical writers because they're pushing all the right buttons. However, I've heard stuff like this before - marketing hype that sounds great but when you look closer what they're offering lacks some of the must-haves of FrameMaker in particular. Everyone who uses FrameMaker (particularly if they've tried to use it for XML) knows that it's an application that's way overdue to be toppled off its pedestal by something that's new, purpose-built for XML and is being actively developed (unlike FrameMaker). Maybe MadCap will be the people to do it. MadCap's product is called Flare. Presumably this will be built around, or at least will be very well-matched for, MAML (the markup scheme Microsoft have developed for Longhorn user assistance). I've noted my interest in the beta - so I'll let you know if I find out more about it. Marketing flier about Flare: www.madcapsoftware.com/assets/brochure.swf