[OT] Help Viewer knows was: blows
[OT] Help Viewer knows was: blows
- Subject: [OT] Help Viewer knows was: blows
- From: OS X AIBO <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 10:28:48 -0700 (PDT)
Help Viewer is clearly a work in progress.
I imagine that I, like many, have had irrational days where I would
rather sudo rm -r /System/Library/CoreServices/Help
Viewer.app/Contents/MacOS/Help Viewer than accidentially launch that
poor excuse for a web browser. Feeding on my own negativity, I would
then mourn the loss of help viewing applications of days gone by
(Digital Librarian R.I.P.) and wonder how so much time could pass and
yet we have gotten nowhere.
But after playing around with Help Viewer, not when I needed the
information (which I think is key to positive intellectual
exploration), I found that most of my complaints came from my lack of
understanding of the application, its configuration, and some
(presumably) fixable UI bugs.
Give it a chance and file bugs & suggestions where appropriate.
As to the content which Help Viewer displays: There is a lot of content
to write, edit and mark-up with semantic-rich tags. This too is a work
in progress. Once in a while, the mark-up tags get screwed up. That is
probably a process thing which can be avoided with more automation. And
perhaps the task-oriented text would flow better in fewer pages (less
forwards and backwards, more content). Constructive criticism is nearly
always well-received by Apple's professional writers.
--Dan
--- Robert Palmer Jr <email@hidden> wrote:
>
You can provide a table of contents, I've seen it in numerous
>
application's Apple Help files. Additionally, one of the things
>
someone else lamented was that Apple Help wouldn't direct you through
>
a
>
process. That again is not entirely true. I have seen help pages
>
that
>
contain links that do certain tasks when clicked - I believe that the
>
>
link is just running an AppleScript.
>
>
So, I think the bottom line is that some of these complaints fall
>
back
>
on the developers. If they want to write plain HTML and then pump it
>
>
through the index generator, they can create a simple Help file with
>
search capabilities. However if the developer takes the time, they
>
can
>
add a table of contents. If they have written their application to
>
be
>
AppleScriptable, they should be able to trigger any scriptable
>
functionality in their app from the help document.
>
>
While I don't completely like the Apple Help, I think some of the
>
blame
>
falls squarely on the shoulders of developers for not taking
>
advantages
>
of the features available - "because it's too much work". Good
>
documentation is hard to find because most developers put it off till
>
>
the last minute and don't make the effort to create good docs. Good
>
docs can be as time consuming as the code itself.
>
>
Robert Palmer, Jr
>
email@hidden
>
>
On Thursday, October 24, 2002, at 07:46 PM, Jonathan Hendry wrote:
>
>
>
>
> I really, really, really dislike the 'ask a question' approach. I
>
want
>
> a full table
>
> of contents, and a decent human-readable index of terms covered, in
>
>
> addition
>
> to the automated search.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Jonathan W. Hendry NeXTSTEP/OpenStep/Cocoa
>
> email@hidden programmer in Connecticut
>
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