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For the Massachusetts Math League, see
Massachusetts Math League.
Microsoft Assistance Markup Language (Microsoft AML,
generally referred to as MAML) is an
XML-based
markup language developed by the Microsoft User Assistance
Platform team to provide user assistance ("online help") for the
Microsoft
Windows Vista operating system. It is somewhat of a
departure from all previous types of user assistance for Windows
operating systems. Some of its features have been available in
.NET Framework 2, but more options shipped with the release
of .NET Framework 3.
The current type of user assistance for Windows operating
systems uses files created with a DOS compiler (.hlp
files), or individual
HTML
topic files in a folder or compiled into one file (.chm
file). The most significant aspect of MAML is that it shifts the
production of user assistance to the concept of structured
authoring (somewhat similar to
DITA
or
DocBook). Documents and their constituent elements are
defined by their context.
The emphasis is on content and the tasks a user performs with
a computer, not the features of the software. Presentation is
managed as part of the rendering engine when a user requests a
topic.
The MAML authoring structure is divided into segments related
to a type of content: conceptual,
FAQ,
glossary, procedure, reference, reusable content, task,
troubleshooting, and tutorial.
Three levels of transformation occur when a topic displays:
structure, presentation, and rendering.
The structural transformation contains reusable content and
applies conditional logic to determine the structure that
content should take when it displays, and the content of the
text itself.
The presentation transformation enables authored in MAML to
use many different formats, including
DHTML,
XAML,
RTF, and printed material.
The rendering transformation applies stylesheets and displays
the final content to users.
See also
-
Online help
-
Microsoft Compressed HTML Help
-
Microsoft WinHelp
-
MHTML
References
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This article has been tagged since June 2006.
External links
-
Microsoft Vista User Experience Guidelines at the MSDN
Library
-
Assistance Platform Team Blog at the Microsoft Developer
Network
Categories:
Windows Vista |
Articles lacking sources from June 2006 |
All articles lacking sources |
Markup languages |
Microsoft APIs