Re: Creating a Cocoa Help Book
Re: Creating a Cocoa Help Book
- Subject: Re: Creating a Cocoa Help Book
- From: Bill Cheeseman <email@hidden>
- Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 17:00:08 -0400
on 2005-05-02 1:09 PM, Matt Neuburg at email@hidden wrote:
> The thing to notice here is that John praises the online help because it is
> "hyperlinked out the wazoo" (or words to that effect). That's crucial. You
> are not going to write good online help unless it is very, very, very, very
> easy to make hyperlinks - because it if isn't easy, you won't make them, and
> if you don't make them, your help will not be as good as it should be (in
> fact, it will probably suck).
It's interesting how Apple Help style guidelines and practice have evolved
over the years. I have always felt your approach is the right one, but Apple
didn't think so in the early days.
In the beginning, Apple's style guidance was very clear that Help should
never contain screenshots (because, after all, the user has the application
right there and can play with it while reading the Help). Also, if I recall
correctly (and I'm not sure I am), the early guidance was to avoid
hyperlinks embedded in text because the user would be distracted by jumping
around too much (navigation links at the bottom of the page being
acceptable).
To the contrary, I believe that screenshots keep the user's attention on the
Help page, where it belongs, and hyperlinks get the reader where the reader
needs to go for the right details without requiring a lot of guesswork.
Apple's own Help files these days tend to follow your advice.
Good job.
(I'm in the habit of using GoLive to compose my Help files, and I haven't
seen a reason that persuades me to switch to something else.)
--
Bill Cheeseman - email@hidden
Quechee Software, Quechee, Vermont, USA
http://www.quecheesoftware.com
PreFab Software - http://www.prefab.com/scripting.html
The AppleScript Sourcebook - http://www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com
Vermont Recipes - http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes
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