Re: [docbook-apps] Web-based help from Docbook

["Mike O." <mike.docbookapps@proverb.net>]

Peter Desjardins wrote:
> I need to produce online help for a Web application.  It must have basic
> online help features such as an expandable TOC, full-text search, and
> multiple panes.

I have exactly the same issues and I was just about to post a similar
query. My wish list would include a custom stylesheet that writes the
necessary javascript, css, and data files to create a TOC, index, and
search pages, and then drops it all in a frameset like applethelp. There
are some nice open-source javascript TOCs available.

In the tech writing community, the preference for web delivery seems to be
RoboHelp's WebHelp format, which does work nicely. But the WebHelp scripts
are copyrighted, so it would be great to have similar output from DocBook.
IMHO, any DocBook solution would have to be benchmarked against WebHelp
and work at least as well. I don't have any answers to offer right now,
but it's on my agenda to look into it.

Mike O.