Re: A few responses

["James M. Cape" <jcape jcinteractive com>]

Dan Mueth wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Chris Lyttle wrote:
> 
> > Its also a pain to use and less than helpful to navigate. I personally
> > think that the windows help interface sucks and should not be the
> > basis we should use to design ours. I do like the suggestions already
> > made and the way that nautilus has it setup with their sliding tabs.
> > As to html based interfaces, I feel its all in how well its put
> > together (ie designed, not just slapped in as an afterthought.)
> 
> Could you be more specific about why the Windows help system is a pain to
> use and why it is not good for navigation?  In my very limited use of it,
> I was rather impressed by how quickly and efficiently one can search for
> things in their alphabetical browse Index.  I think this is partly due to
> their task-oriented style of documentation and indexing. Of course I
> haven't really used it, just played with it.  So I am probably missing out
> on many details. Could you explain in more detail what they are doing
> wrong, and what we might do differently?
> 
> Dan
> 
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In my experience, the Windows Help System is not convinient to use
unless you are using it as intended, as with most other Microsoft
creations. I personally had a bit of difficulty getting to the
particular tool I wanted, and from there to the particular documentation
I wanted. In addition, the lack of a useful search tool (read as: full
text search tool) is a definate minus.

One thing to keep in mind as doc writers is that you *are* doc writers.
The way you search for things is not necessarily the first way most
people try when they are searching for things. You have a familiarity
with the help system and its structure far above those of mortal users,
and thus are biased from the get go.

That said, here are the problems I have found in using the Windows Help
Tool:

1. The Tabs. There is no way to look at the index *and* search at the
same time, which is bad, as it struck me (the first time using it) that
the two were uncomfortably unrelated.

2. Lack of an "Intro" page. That is, a home page for the help browser,
that it enters when it is fired up by itself. I believe this may have
been fixed in Windows 98, but is not really an issue in GHB -- although
I would like to have the current page fixed.

3. Lack of a full text search of the doc or docs in question. The search
of the help system could have a pair of radio buttons: "Search the topic
headings" and "Search the entire document". This search should also use
a GnomeEntry (ComboBox) and store history (as should virtually all entry
boxes, IMHO) so one can go back and re-search easily. Obviously, topic
headings with the search word in them should be displayed first, so some
kind of ranking system may have to be created to handle this. A
difficult task, I realize, but the benefits are pretty neat, especially
in light of the fact that virtually everybody who will use this system
has used a web search before and knows how to use them.

"100% <link>Known <b>bugs</b> and limitations</link>
 ...Know <b>Bugs</b> and limitations
 * Setting something up improperly can cause dangerous results,
consult...

 95% <link>Introduction</link>
 ...was created by Me, Myself, and You <memyselfyou@wierdo.com>. Please
 report all <b>bugs</b> to the GNOME <b>Bug<b> Tracking System via
 <b>bug-buddy</b>..."

4. Ugly. I realize this is less-than-objective, but I always though
their snot-yellow pages and poor/no graphics were bad. Personally, I
think borrowing some look/feel elements from the current website is a
good idea (as the docs can be changed when the website is changed by
simply changing the scripts).

5. The lack of a font configuration: Although the "Font Size" pulldown
may seem like a nice feature at first glance, it uses the dumbed-down
(and imprecise) font size configuration found only in IE (and not point
sizes, which are found everywhere else in Windows). Remember, there is
nothing difficult about an integer scale that isn't in a "Medium"
"Large", etc. scale (in fact, it takes longer to read the text scale and
decipher it than to read the number, which may actually make that slower
to use than pt/px scales). Also, while I may use Helvetica for my
widgets-in-general, I like actually reading things in 15px Times New
Roman, and coding in Courier 12px.

6. Toolbar with only three items on it. The Windows 98 version groups
them off, but I'm not sure we can (or would want) to do that in
Nautilus. Toolbars need at least 60% of it's space in use to look pretty
(depending on the size of the toolbar, of course), and having "Next",
"Up", and "Previous" buttons would keep those controls (which are
universal to all of GNOME's docs, at least) constantly visible. Combined
with "Back", "Forward", "Print", and possibly "Index" you've got a
pretty decent looking toolbar with all the major navigation controls
visible all the time. In this case, it's improving beauty and usability
at the same time.

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com

    "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them
     pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
        -- Winston Churchill