This year's conference has definitely raised more questions than answers.

• WinHelp. The Help MVPs decided that I would be the one to post to the public groups (HATT, Techwr-l, etc.), and I've answered lots of posts since I made the WinHelp announcement. To clarify a few things:
  • Yes, what I provided was the latest official announcement. It currently supersedes all other announcements (although once Microsoft updates some stuff on their site, that won't necessarily be true...on the other hand, they'll be updating the information to what I provided.
  • No, you don't need to convert your WinHelp files today. Or tomorrow. Or even next week. But you definitely need to plan on it.
  • Yes, the WinHelp engine should run on Vista. But this doesn't mean anyone should do it. Microsoft has some very good reasons for making this decision, and it was not made lightly. (No, I can't publicly state what these decisions are. But I can tell you that I agree with them, and I know a lot of what went into making this decision.)
• Adobe and RoboHelp. One post that I read said "too little, too late". It would have been great if this announcement had been made last year. (Heck, it would have been great if they had showed up last year.) What concerns me is that the announced release date is mid 2007. I don't know how many folks will still care by then...it's a long time away. Anyone who has any kind of issue will have moved by then...no one can wait 15 months (on top of the 3+ years we've already waited) for a possible solution. (At this point, we don't even know what that solution is.)
• MadCap. Last year, MadCap showed up (pretty much before they had much more than some T-shirts and a banner ;-) ). This year, Flare has been released, and two other tools were announced: Mimic (for animations) and Capture (for screenshots). Both apps are tightly integrated with Flare. (They also gave away new T-shirts, including the "die kadov" shirt. See the MadCap store!)
• Scriptorium. Structured Frame users now have an easy solution to providing online Help outputs with Scriptorium's latest tool, DocFrame. I might not use Frame, but I know a tool designed for its users when I see it!

I have to run...I'll gather more information today :-)