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

Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 19, 2020 at 09:22 AM

Hey Jeffery,

Before committing to what sounds like a remarkably clunky process (I use and adore FM Pro, but would never use it for a project like the one you’ve described, not least because of the post-editing required), I’d suggest you look at Versatil Markdown in the Mac App Store, which is a very powerful editor (a bit like Typora on steroids). It also exports to PDF, HTML or Web Archive format, which seems to me ideal for something like help files or hypertext notebooks.

It also supports document aliases (transclusion, as I was kindly reminded in a previous post). It’s not well known - not because it’s not actually very easy to use (it is), but perhaps because it comes across first and foremost as a programmer’s tool (it can be).

Which reminds me that it would also be worthwhile exploring Quiver as a possible solution (now that does describe itself as a programmer’s notebook, but is a lovely piece of software, although the author appears, alas, to have given up on developing an iOS version). Quiver (also in the Mac App Store) also has an impressive range of output options, including PDF, HTML, Markdown, JSON and others.

Cheers!
Bill

Jeffery Smith wrote:
Thanks for the replies. I fiddled around with several things, and I may
>untimately use what I have used in the past for this sort of
>project…Filemaker Pro. I even used Nutshell, the distant ancestor of
>FMPro over 3 decades ago. I make a framework for the title, writing, and
>any pictures on a template, fill in the information on one screen, and
>make another layout to print to PDF. But I’m also going to use Adobe
>Acrobat to create links in the manual that jump to major pages
>referenced.