Re: List of delegates
Re: List of delegates
- Subject: Re: List of delegates
- From: Charles Srstka <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 18:17:26 -0500
On Tuesday, May 7, 2002, at 05:35 PM, Ondra Cada wrote:
>
On Wednesday, May 8, 2002, at 12:14 , Michael P. Rogers wrote:
>
>
>> Regardless what's in TOC, at least *scanning* NSWindow doc before one
>
>> asks something quite obviously related to it would seem to me as
>
>> somewhat natural!
>
>
>
> It is: but you have to page down *85* times before you reach the
>
> material in question, and there is not the slightest hint prior to
>
> that that it might be there! The only way you'd discover it is if a)
>
> you knew in advance to look for it there, or b) you were sufficiently
>
> bored that you would deliberately page through all the material. This
>
> is a problem with the documentation, not the guy who asked the
>
> question.
>
>
(c) find "delegate" gives a link to "Notifications and the NSWindow's
>
Delegate" at the 3rd hit. First of the delegate-specific methods there
>
is "windowShouldClose:", and searching it goes directly to the target
>
at the 6th hit.
>
>
Sorry, but *this* extremely basic level of using one's own brains
>
should be kind of automatic, at least for a developer.
No, this is the kind of attitude that results in so many applications
having absolutely terrible UI's. The problems with the documentation are
as follows:
1. The TOC lists everything that is in the docs for a class except for
the delegate messages. Since the TOC's are so complete otherwise, there
is no way the user is going to expect there to be more information
buried underneath everything else, without any indication whatsoever
that it is there. If it's not in the TOC, it doesn't appear to exist,
since users will get used to being able to jump to just about anything
else via the TOC.
2. Many users (including myself) scan the TOC to have a look at what a
class can do, and to decide whether a class is the one they should use
for a certain task. Leaving out important information is going to steer
people in the wrong direction.
3. Even if the above were not true, it's a major pain in the rear to get
at an object's delegate methods when they're not linked to in the TOC.
Being able to click on a method to get its description is incredibly
handy, and is certainly better than scanning through the entire
documentation or doing a search each time just to see if some class has
any delegate methods, having to hit "Find Next" multiple times to get
past mentions of the delegate in the class description if it uses a
delegate, and ending up in another class's documentation if it doesn't...
4. Searching for something only works if you already know what you're
looking for. Many users look at the TOC to see what features a class
has, and it's just wrong to assume that people can search for things
that there is not even any indication of the existence of.
Charles
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.