Madcap Flare
About a month ago, I posted on my frustration with RoboHelp. After all, it’s never a good sign when an entire development team disappears.
This development team re-materialized in the form of a new company called Madcap, with the flagship product of Flare. Madcap Flare could be the first serious challenger to the RoboHelp monopoly.
I downloaded the Sneak Peak and wasn’t overly impressed. However, the sneak peek file is a pre-1.0 release and it is hobbled by its very sneak peekiness.
I had some questions regarding the maintenance, support, and so on and spoke with some members of the Sales Team. The Sales Team was very, well, sales team like. I got a hard sell. In the end, I ended up emailing with Mike Hamilton, VP of Product Mgmt. He answered my multiple questions patiently and over the course of a Saturday and Sunday. I simply can’t express how impressed by am by this customer service.
Today I purchased Madcap Flare, although 1.0 is officially released tomorrow. I’ll start developing with it in a week or two. From now on, unless a client specifically requests RoboHelp, I will most likely use Flare as my primary Help development tool. I suppose the future of Help, for me, is now.
For those of your wondering, the Flare EULA does allow you to install on two machines (a home or portable machine and a work or desktop machine). I can’t believe I read the EULA.
I’m concerned about two things – the change in appearance of the Glossary tab (or lack thereof) and the method for creating Context-Sensitive Help, It’s so easy in RoboHelp …
Related Posts:
- Lacking in Flare (May 2006)
- RoboGoodbye? (January 2006)
Technorati: madcap flare
Paul Thomas
September 6th, 2007 at 7:07 am #
Robohelp is now developed by Adobe and Robohelp 7 is due to be released in the next few months.
Those frustrated with complex replacements now have a chance to move back to the industry standard tool.
Robohelp is definitely a main player again and that is relief.