Converting H&M Browser-based Help to WordPress

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Malcolm Jacobson
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Converting H&M Browser-based Help to WordPress

Unread post by Malcolm Jacobson »

Hi all,

I've been creating a fairly large browser-based User Guide in Help & Manual, and the Project Manager has just let me know that they'd like to convert it into a WordPress site so that Users have the ability to add their comments to each Help topic while using the Guide.

I run a couple of sites that use WordPress so I'm familiar with that software, but I'm not looking forward to having to manually recreate the fairly large navigation system I created in Help and Manual, so I'm wondering if there are any automated ways to convert a TOC from Help and Manual into WordPress categories.

Has anyone managed to convert an existing Help and Manual project into WordPress?

Cheers,

Malcolm.
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John Waller
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Unread post by John Waller »

I use WordPress on some websites and I use Help and Manual offline for an intranet help system unrelated to the websites. But I've never used them together.

Maintaining and updating content would be an issue of concern.

Is the desire to convert to WP driven solely by the desire to add a comments feature to each H&M topic? Could this be done instead by adding a simple Javascript widget script to each page in H&M such as http://js-kit.com/comments?
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

This would be a major undertaking: H&M generates static HTML pages, whilst Wordpress stores its information in a MySQL database and generates its pages on the fly when you visit the site. There are really almost no points of contact between the two systems, they are completely different beasts. You would either have to manually enter every page of text from your H&M project in a new Wordpress posting or you would have to write a converter to convert the HTML pages to the MySQL database format used by Wordpress... Unless you have a programmer assigned to the task this is probably not going to be an option.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Malcolm Jacobson
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Unread post by Malcolm Jacobson »

johnw wrote:Is the desire to convert to WP driven solely by the desire to add a comments feature to each H&M topic?
Yes, the Client wants to capture feedback on each topic so that the feedback can be incorporated into future versions of the Help.
johnw wrote:Could this be done instead by adding a simple Javascript widget script to each page in H&M such as http://js-kit.com/comments?
Thanks for the link, that's a great plugin! :) Unfortunately it won't work for this situation as that plugin has to be run on an external website. Our Client will be running the Help content on a secure intranet.

After testing various options, we ended up adding a "mailto" link at the bottom of each topic page. The link opens the Users email program, and the Subject line of the email is automatically populated with the name of the Topic. Not as smooth as WordPress, but it still provides some way to collate feedback.

Cheers,

Malcolm.
Malcolm Jacobson
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Unread post by Malcolm Jacobson »

Hi Tim,

We ended up using a "mailto" link (see message above).
Tim Green wrote:This would be a major undertaking: H&M generates static HTML pages, whilst Wordpress stores its information in a MySQL database and generates its pages on the fly when you visit the site. There are really almost no points of contact between the two systems, they are completely different beasts.
There is an option in WordPress to import content from a WordPress XML Export ("WordPress eXtended RSS" - used when moving from one site to another). Do you think it might be possible to provide export from H&M to WordPress XML format one day?

Cheers,

Malcolm.
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Malcolm,
MJ wrote:There is an option in WordPress to import content from a WordPress XML Export ("WordPress eXtended RSS" - used when moving from one site to another). Do you think it might be possible to provide export from H&M to WordPress XML format one day?
Well, the whole point of XML is that it lends itself to conversion to virtually any other kind of XML. And there are rumblings in the bushes, but don't hold your breath just yet. That is all I'm going to say on this subject for the moment... 8)
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Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Malcolm Jacobson
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Unread post by Malcolm Jacobson »

Tim Green wrote:Well, the whole point of XML is that it lends itself to conversion to virtually any other kind of XML. And there are rumblings in the bushes, but don't hold your breath just yet.
Awesome! Looking forward to it!! :)

FWIW, the fact that H&M uses XML as the underlying code was one of the main reasons I was able to convert our company over from RoboHelp. The ability to import/export in XML is going to be increasingly important for us.

Cheers,

Malcolm.
jeff1
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Unread post by jeff1 »

Just a 'me too' note here (export to Wordpress or similar content management system).

I want to write the majority of the documentation, then allow our userbase to post comments, suggestions, or point out errors.

I necessarily want the userbase to be able to edit the actual H&M content (so that little comment thingy above is an option.

-Jeff
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Jeff,
jeff1 wrote:I want to write the majority of the documentation, then allow our userbase to post comments, suggestions, or point out errors. I necessarily want the userbase to be able to edit the actual H&M content (so that little comment thingy above is an option.
The main problem is not getting the content into Wordpress or any other blog or wiki, the problem is round-tripping: Converting Help & Manual to Wordpress is a relatively trivial undertaking. Re-importing it to Help & Manual is another kettle of fish entirely. Even if you fill the Wordpress code with illegal comment tags to preserve the H&M-specific settings it still won't help you because users will be adding comments and possibly even content in Wordpress or your wiki system.

You either have to accept that export is a one-way street only, or you have to accept that topics for export are only going to have a very limited subset of H&M's formatting capabilities. And as soon as you start talking about more complex projects with lots of topics, lots of authors and lots of changes, synchronization between the online version and the H&M version would become a serious problem.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Malcolm Jacobson
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Unread post by Malcolm Jacobson »

Tim Green wrote:The main problem is not getting the content into Wordpress or any other blog or wiki, the problem is round-tripping: Converting Help & Manual to Wordpress is a relatively trivial undertaking.
I would be very happy to have the one-way export to WordPress. The situation I was planning to use it in involved the client's Users entering comments/tips/experience using WordPress comments, that would be collated/edited once per year for inclusion in the revised (annual) edition of the Help.

So once a year it would be a case of adding the edited comments to the H&M content and exporting this back into a "clean" WordPress site for the new year.

Obviously two-way conversion would be ideal, but even one-way would be a great benefit to us.

Cheers,

Malcolm.
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Tim Green
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Unread post by Tim Green »

Malcolm,
Obviously two-way conversion would be ideal, but even one-way would be a great benefit to us.
Thanks a lot for this feedback -- this kind of information is very valuable. :wink:
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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jeff1
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Unread post by jeff1 »

Just a 'me too' for one-way wiki/cms export.

I can see how round-tripping would be troublesome, but personally, I wouldn't use it if it were available anyway for editorial reasons similar to the technical ones. (I want the "official" content noted differently that community-edited stuff. When/If I merge community-generated content into our "official" docs, I'll need to sanitize/format/edit and otherwise manage that import process manually.)

So, for the record, here's my Wiki-Wishlist:
* export a H&M project to XML in a wordpress (or other) friendly format
* import that XML file into CMS, make publically viewable (maintaining HTML formatting, topic/page heirarchy, searching (using CMS if necessary), index, et cetera)
* allow our userbase to log into the CMS, and comment on the H&M content. H&M Content should be read-only (or editable only by insiders), while anyone could add new comments (pointing out errors, expanding "stubs" et cetera). CMS permissions should be sufficient to manage this.
* We would then manually update the H&M content based on the community-generated content, and republish a new, full edition of the docs via CMS once a critital mass of comments/suggestions are posted.

**It would be swell if the community could make new topics from scratch as well as commenting on our existing topics. Again, I'm happy to assume that the CMS side of things would handle this.

I'm willing to beta test or otherwise help out any way I can on this; just let me know...

Thanks, Jeff
Malcolm Jacobson
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Unread post by Malcolm Jacobson »

jeff1 wrote:I'm willing to beta test or otherwise help out any way I can on this; just let me know...
Ditto. :)

I think WordPress would be able to take care of your wishlist once H&M is able to export to WordPress compatible XML.

Cheers,

Malcolm.
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