Hello FrameMaker Gurus.
I've been working as a lone writer for a software company for many years. We have a 1300 page product manual that was originally authored in unstructured FrameMaker. We then use WebWorks to generate "Webhelp" that is both hosted online publically and installable with the software. You can see it here:
http://www.tableausoftware.com/currentonlinehelp
In preparation for multiple writers as well as multiple products, I have since converted the content to structured XML using the DITA DTD. I still author in Structured FrameMaker working from the XML files. I am now considering my options for how to generate the final output. My problem with webhelp templates is that the output is a framed help system connected by javascript links. That format makes it difficult to get the help pages to be indexed by search engines because they cannot get into the frames and if they do they cannot follow the javascript links. Further, webhelp output is isolated from our other UA content on the corporate website (e.g., knowledge base articles, forums, etc.). Our customers need to be able to search across all of these resources. The webhelp is a stand alone system with its own search. Additionally, we would like to have more cross linking into the help pages from other sources. The framed webhelp seems to make those deep dive links difficult. Finally, the look and feel of most webhelp (even with a fair amount of CSS/customization) is clunky at best. 1999 called, they want their help system back.
My thinking is that in order to get a help system that is easily indexable by search engines and integrates with our other content (managed by Drupal), I will have to generate unframed HTML pages that have the TOC built into the pages. Then I can either point a search appliance at it to unify Drupal content and help content in a single search or I can import the HTML into Drupal as part of my publish process. The HTML pages would be generated using the DITA open toolkit and custom XSLT stylesheets to do the transform.
Those pieces are outside of my technical skill level and would require a lot of time and money to put together. Before going down that route, I am trying to learn what other people do once they've gotten to an XML source using Structured FrameMaker. Does everyone just generate webhelp and be happy with it? If so, are they using DITA open toolkit or are they using other tools? How do they solve the search problems associated with webhep?
Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I don't want to dig down a hole of custom development to design the perfect help pages before I know that the solution is not already out there.
Thanks,
Erin