Web-based tutorial development

January 19, 2006 11:43 AM

Are there any free/open source tools available to create web-based (HTML) tutorials that don't require server installation? I've played with IBM's Toot-o-matic in the past but it doesn't work with Java 1.5 and doesn't seem to be actively supported.

I don't need anything too extravagant which is why I'm pursuing a low/no-cost solution. My intentions are to create something that can be zipped up and sent to people who need the training, which is why I don't want something that requires being on a server.

posted by tommasz to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Let me understand - you are not talking about "web-based" but about using HTML to create the tutorial, right? Depending on what features you need it may be easy or very, very difficult.

If all you need to use is supported by the main browsers (HTML, CSS, Flash), it is just a matter of creating the pages and using only relative links. So, the "Next" link will be something like . This way, when the user opens the file locally, the browser will search the file relative to the current page location.

You can even use an installer (like NSIS) to create an icon in the user's desktop, put everything in a separate directory and provide an uninstaller.

Now, if you need complex processing and scripting, database connections, etc (the kind of thing provided by server side systems like PHP), then you will have a lot of trouble recreating the whole interaction support locally.
posted by nkyad at 12:07 PM on January 19, 2006

Sorry, bad formatting: the second paragraph should read: "If all you need to use is supported by the main browsers (HTML, CSS, Flash), it is just a matter of creating the pages and using only relative links. So, the "Next" link will be something like <a href="page2.html">. This way, when the user opens the file locally, the browser will search the file relative to the current page location."
posted by nkyad at 12:09 PM on January 19, 2006

Best answer: You might want to consider using the cool-but-clumsily-named Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System (demo).
posted by kirkaracha at 2:02 PM on January 19, 2006

Response by poster: Yeah, I was unclear. I don't really have a server I can use, so an HTML file (or set of files) that I can either send to people who need the training or store on our document sharing system for them to download is what I'm thinking of. I don't need any complex interaction, so simple links between pages is sufficient.
posted by tommasz at 2:03 PM on January 19, 2006

I use Movable Type to generate S5 (Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System) slideshows... You can get Movable Type (there's a free version) here and the S5 template here and then run MT on your own computer to generate the pages.
posted by anildash at 9:56 PM on January 19, 2006