TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Cayenne Woods wrote:
>This week, the company decided to change the name of all the software (4
pieces
>+ admin guide - not huge/complex software, but enough). The deadline is
Friday.
>Tonite, Wednesday, I've finally got a build with _some_ of the new names
and
>icons (there are new directory paths, dialogs, names of most of the
software,
>etc, plus the actual changes in the software).
Exactly the same thing happened to me at my last job: two days before
deadline, we got a directive from On High that the name of the product was
to be changed. This was way too late to change all the references in the
code, so both the developers and I did some quickie surface fixes, changing
direct references but not directory paths. (Fortunately, I only had to amend
two dialog boxes.) The next release had full changes, and I made the point
(somewhat heavily) that I *really* did not want to hear that the software
name had changed again.
It's infuriating. It's added work at the wrong time. But it's not the end of
the world.
Document how much more time you're going to need to implement the required
changes, tell them, and get back to work. (You may need to make it clear to
them that it's really a very bad idea to run through documentation with
automatic search-and-replace, no matter *how* sure you are that the changes
you make can't impact on anything else. They may have this idea that you can
do it all in half an hour.)
Jane Carnall
Technical Writer, Digital Bridges, Scotland
Unless stated otherwise, these opinions are mine, and mine alone.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
The Help Technology Conference, August 21-24 in Boston, MA
Details and online registration at http://www.SolutionsEvents.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
