Distributed client-server applications

Amanda Caley will be test-driving ‘Author-it Live’ at the UK Technical Communication Conference on the 23rd and 24th of September 2009.

Distributed systems and web applications are becoming more and more common-place as people demand the flexibility of ‘anytime, anywhere’ access to their applications and data.
This session explores the advantages and disadvantages of client-server applications as Team Chameleon take a look at Author-it Live, a web-based authoring, content management and publishing solution.

Posted by Michael Lai, Marketing Executive, Author-it Software Corporation

Amanda Caley, Director of Content Chameleon reviews Author-it 5.2 and provides a 12-step guide to assist experienced Author-it users in performing a first-pass evaluation of the new structured authoring feature.

Here is a copy of the article that has been published in the Communicator Summer 2009 issue.

Posted by Michael Lai, Marketing Executive, Author-it Software Corporation

Cross the Solent to the Isle of Wight and you may feel as if you have stepped back in time! The Isle of Wight is one of the best kept secrets in the UK when it comes to areas of outstanding natural beauty. If you like sailing, walking and cycling as much as we do then the Isle of Wight is definitely one to put on your list of places to visit. I also have it on good authority that the golf is pretty good too, but I haven’t been bitten by that particular bug just yet!

Martin and I have fallen so much in love with the Island that last summer we bought a property in Cowes, gave it a complete make over and we are now letting it out for sailing regattas and family holidays. For more information have a look at our Regatta Cottage website (created using Author-it of course!).

Posted by Amanda Caley, Director, Content Chameleon, Author-it Certified Consultant”

A really effective way of managing your review comments in Author-it is to create a number of standard review topics, using your usual ‘review’ style. These standard review topics should containing the questions that you are always asking of your reviewers and notes to yourself or other authors in your team. For example:

Please can you provide more information.
Is this correct?
Insert a screenshot here.

So that you can easily search for these topics the titles should have a prefix, for example RT: or if you work with a team of authors then you may want to prefix with your initials. For example:

AC: Please can you provide more information.
JH: Please can you provide more information.

When required these review topics can be inserted as an embedded topic.
Posted By Amanda Caley, Director, Content Chameleon, Author-it Certified Consultant

If you ever need to make any major structural changes to one of your books then here’s a tip – before you do anything print out the structure of your book as it is, just in case you need to revert back to your original structure!  To print the structure of a book:

1. Open the book in the Book Editor view.
2. Click on the Author-it Button, located in the top left corner of the main window.
3. Select Print > Print Book.

…and now if you get into a real mess with the structure you can always flatten the structure so that everything is at the top level, get the topics in the right order and re-do the structure.”

Amanda Caley, Director, Content Chameleon,
Author-it Certified Consultant.