Tech writing

Assetly (Concept Sample)

Daryl White
About this sample The information below is about a fictitious software product, “Assetly.” I based Assetly on a real product I documented, though many details have changed in this document. I wrote the original product document in Madcap Flare in consultation with a number of subject matter experts, including: Product Manager Developers Quality Assurance team Sales team members who championed the product Product Team Executives This sample reimagines the original document, now written in Markdown for use in this blog.

Assetly Group Schedule (Task Sample)

Daryl White
About this sample The information below is about a task a user would need to complete in a fictitious software product, “Assetly.” I based Assetly on a real product I documented, though many details have changed in this document. I wrote the original document in Madcap Flare based on my own use of the software. During my use of the real product, I occasionally uncovered bugs or more complicated problems. When discovered, I created issue cards in the development team’s issue tracking system.
So you've decided to convert your docs

So you've decided to convert your docs

Daryl White
Credits: Photo by Mat Brown from Pexels So you’ve done the work and you are ready to convert your docs from one tool to another. I, too, have done this. Actually, I am on my third time through doing such a massive undertaking. This time, as a lone writer having to maintain docs in both the old platform and the new. It’s an undertaking. Here’s some advice from a conversion veteran.

Choosing a doc toolkit

Daryl White
I have spent the last year at my current job working on transitioning our docs from Madcap Flare to Antora. First things, Madcap Flare is a great tool. This is the third place I have worked that has used Flare for some form of documentation, and it does its job well. However, there are several factors that impacted the decision to move away from Flare to another tool. Flare is proprietary software that requires a not-insubstantial subscription license to use.

Building a Portfolio Site

Daryl White
Image credit: Photo by Vojtech Okenka from Pexels TL;DR Here’s what I did to create this site and give myself a (well, almost) free site to build out a portfolio. Create an account with a Git service provider. I used GitLab I already had, but GitHub also works. Select a starter template from Forestry.io for the desired SSG (static site generator) and create it on Forestry. Forestry.io automatically adds a new repository and branch on your Git provider.