Online Doc Fundamentals
The Help Files Evolution: From Pop-Ups and Frames to Markdown Bliss
I’ve been building online help since the early days — back when HTML ruled and editors were mainly plain text. Things have changed a lot, but some fundamentals are still going strong.
In this piece, I look back at how Help has evolved, from RoboHelp and tri-pane structures to the cleaner world of Markdown and static site generators. It’s part nostalgia, part practicality — and all about making documentation better.