App for making a hypertext (self-contained) software manual

Posted by Jeffery Smith
Jun 18, 2020 at 09:59 AM

I’m putting together a user guide for a complicated database for creating teaching schedules, assigning faculty to classes, and coding the classes with payment amounts. In short, a narrative that is on continuous pages (about 50 of them) would be difficult to read and use. I would prefer to have an app that would allow me to make 50 self-contained pages, each with several paragraphs and maybe a table, and have all of these pages hypertext-linked to one another but not outside of the document.

All modern word processors seem to have this sort of functionality, but the writing still exists in what Neil Larson used to call a “toilet roll” document. I would prefer a *file* that allows me enough freedom between pages so I can sort them alphabetically, but not have separate files for all of the pages. Like Tinderbox, I would like to be able to drag the pages into alphabetical order, or possibly group them, not for the user’s benefit, but for my benefit in organizing the topics.

Tinderbox and StorySpace (fraternal twins from Eastgate) seem to have possibilities, but so little is written about them, I’m not sure. VooDooPad can do the hypertext, but can the file serve as a free-standing document with internal links, with no need for a runtime solution? I’ve also considered Filemaker Pro with lots of buttons and scripts sending the user around. And some of the PDF editors seem to have some of this capability.

Have any of you had this challenge and found something that is self-contained (needs no app to be bought by the end user)? I’m hoping for something that would allow me to paste tables and figures on the pages as well.