Re: Help browsers galore

[Shaun McCance <shaunm wolfram com>]

On Mon, 2003-06-30 at 13:30, Sander Vesik wrote:
>  --- Calum Benson <calum benson sun com> wrote: > On Mon, 2003-06-30 at 19:17,
> Sander Vesik wrote:
> > 
> > > so wheres screenshots about help that is usable to non-macosx users? 8-P
> > 
> > Looks like he accepts submissions if you want to point him at some :)
> > 
> 
> its just that the general impression one gets from it is that even if you have a
> really 
> crappy help file - see the one for swordsishexpress that has just 3 categories
> 'quickstart', 
> 'faq' and 'hints' (ok, so the textslt one might be worser) suddenly magicaly becomes
> usable help thanx to shipping on macosx. 

Oh certainly.  Lickable buttons do not good documentation make.  Much of
Gnome's documentation is very thorough, but I wonder how easy it is for
users to find the information they want quickly.

Take a look at the "Quick Clicks" in the second iTunes screenshot.  Some
user gets iTunes and thinks, "I wonder how to listen to Internet radio
with this."  Oh, there it is.  A complete manual is wonderful, but I
think it would be nice to anticipate common questions and have quick
links to the relevant section.  Sections of a manual should, of course,
be as self-standing as possible.  People rarely read manuals straight
through.

> but i think we need to add some kind of search / indexing and 'aska question'
> facility 
> before we seriously call ours usable

Yup.  That all has to wait for 2.6 though, unless some magic's been
happening that I don't know about.  What can still be done for 2.4,
though, is some needed interface work.  This is needed anyway to work
good searching / indexing in.  (Interface improvements should, of
course, be designed around the idea that searching will come.)

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91610
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=85912

These screenshots provide an overview of what other help browsers look
like, which can be useful in prodding the mind to think of something
better.

--
Shaun