I am looking for some kind of help authoring/publishing tool.
We want to use it for an online help system for our internal applications.
Ideally, we would host it and our staff could author the pages.
It needs to have some kind of hierarchy and be web based.
Any ideas?
I would suggest taking a look at using Sphinx as a document authoring system - the results can be published as any/all of:
Extensive cross-references: semantic markup and automatic links for functions, classes, citations, glossary terms and similar pieces of information. Hierarchical structure: easy definition of a document tree, with automatic links to siblings, parents and children. Code handling: automatic highlighting using the Pygments highlighter.
The inputs to the help system can be easily version controlled which is a big advantage.
Free, Gratis & Open Source but licenced for commercial use.
Not totally sure what you're after, exactly; but the main points that stood out are:
• Web based.
Assistance:
• Authoring.
• Hosting.
• Publishing.
I've been impressed with the web/cloud-based development environment tool & service, Cloud9:
It's web-based, and particularly well suited for creating web-based content of your own.
It seems to account for your requirements.
Maybe it's of some use to you.
