ITauthor

Due to the lack of any response to my question on the Content Wrangler forum (http://thecontentwrangler.ning.com/forum/topics/how-can-i-deliver-serverbased – see also my previous post), I’ve been digging around trying to find out more about Madcap’s .NET Help. This isn’t easy as Madcap have not published much documentation for it (although there is an SDK that presumably tells developers what they need to know – but doesn’t help me, as a technical author).

So I’ve been having a dig around on Madcap’s forums and I came across a really interesting discussion (starting in November 2006 and, currently, ending in December last year). This centres around Madcap’s in-your-face branding of their .NET Help Viewer. It had the following problems:

• A big Madcap splash screen that was displayed every time you started up the help,
• Madcap branding on the title bar of the Viewer – rather than the name of the help project.
• Madcap branding in the Help menu called from within the Viewer.

There is much lively discussion in the string of messages. One contributor makes the point that there is no earthly point in Madcap promoting themselves in a Help system that is not going anywhere near anyone who would ever buy, or be remotely interested in, Flare or any other technical authoring application. Another contributor makes the point that I’m sure I would face: customers running a mission-critical IT system do not want to see a big, jokey splash screen suddenly appearing. It reeks of malware! Even the name “Madcap” would set teeth grinding if it appeared in the applications my company produces.

Finally, bowing to the weight and vehemence of the postings, Madcap gets around to providing a way of disabling the splash screen – but no word on configuring the title bar text and icon. As for the help menu, I think there’s a workaround.

One of the interesting things, reading through this, was the exasperation evident in the postings. People really, really wanted to use this product but were unable to because Madcap couldn’t go that extra mile (or 100 yards) for them. And the change from vitriol to delight and gratitude when Madcap staff contributed to the discussion with some positive news was quite touching, although it did seem a bit like: “Thank you for making it possible for us to use your product!”