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Subject:Help! green screens on the web From:"Roberts, Dan" <RobertsD -at- bis -dot- adp -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:58:42 -0500
Hi folks,
After the last several years of doc'ing relatively small GUI applications,
I'm now doc'ing a large greenscreen application--and I'm stumped. The
application lacks any sort of hierarchy (although it does have certain
conceptual areas--trade entry, financing trades, clearance, etc), you can
get from any screen to any other screen by use of a command field (so
there's not much in the way of progression of screens), information entered
on one screen can affect multiple other functions.
The application is going on the web, and I'm tasked with creating a "user
guide" (data entry level) for this beast, as well as developing/maintaining
the higher-level conceptual information, in some sort of "linked" document
or documents. Currently we create doc in PDF for delivery via the web, but
I'm wanting to push for some sort of interactive help medium.
Right now, what's got me most stumped is coming up with some sort of
structured (info map ish) format to dump this information into. If this were
a more GUI-type application, I wouldln't have as much problem as I'm
having--but the green-screen thing feels like hitting a brick wall.
So I'm throwing myself on the mercy of techwr-l. If any of you that are
still producing green screen docs and have faced and overcome the
task-oriented/structured/interactive hurdles, I'd really appreciate hearing
from you. And I'd love to maybe see a few pages of yr documentation, just to
start getting some ideas about what I can do to this stuff. (I dont think
Eric lets us send attachments via the list, so maybe private responses are
better, to my robertsd -at- bis -dot- adp -dot- com address.)
Any and all help, suggestions, advice, samples are appreciated.
Dan Roberts
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