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[sonder]

Been using Trello for the time being but finding I'd really like a deeper heirearchy, and something that will let me create pages quickly and allows the reader to navigate using a tree-style TOC ala PDF's and CHM's

[Deckhead]

Doxygen. Markup and can export to html for your web manual as well as rtf and chm.

[sonder]

Doxygen. Markup and can export to html for your web manual as well as rtf and chm.

I know of that.  Can we pretend that I'm not documenting an API, but writing a user manual for a synthesizer or something?  I really just want to give people the lay of the land and let the source itself fill in the holes.  There's not much of it.

[readyplaygames]

Possibly naive answer, but Word lets you "link" to places within the page for navigation. Would that work?

[JohnsyJohnsy]

TeX
LaTeX

here's some people giving tips how to make manuals using Tex
http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3852/latex-template-for-a-technical-reference-manual-user-guide

[Cheezmeister]

Ew. LaTeX is great and all but "create pages quickly" it will not.

@kidfingers, can you be more specific on your requirements/tradeoffs? Depending on how much horsepower you need, check out RST (ReStructured Text) for writing and Gitit for serving it up.

I'd suggest straight-up Markdown, but a TOC is problematic.

[sonder]

Ew. LaTeX is great and all but "create pages quickly" it will not.

Also, the Windows distribution is nearly 2GB ... ??  my internet is not so great.  It will time out.

@kidfingers, can you be more specific on your requirements/tradeoffs? Depending on how much horsepower you need, check out RST (ReStructured Text) for writing and Gitit for serving it up.

I'd suggest straight-up Markdown, but a TOC is problematic.

Well, I was looking for a program.  I know of Markdown and if I go with making it a Wiki I would write it in that.

Really anything anyone can suggest that can be of some help.  I don't know what I want, I just want to try out what other people use.

[Cheezmeister]

Well, I was looking for a program.

You mean, like...Word? :D If it's a WYSIWYG you want, you won't get much better than that short of some user-manual-specific customware (I'm not aware of any myself). But plain-text rendered to HTML is probably a safer bet.

Perhaps if you provide some examples of manuals similar to what you hope to achieve, the board can offer some more targeted tech options for getting there.

Personally, if I were to make a manual, I'd just start writing it and worry about formatting later. Getting the content right is so much more important.

[Vanin]

I agree with using a Wiki. Stick it somewhere you can keep it always updated. Anyone that's going to use a synth is going to be fine with using the internet =)