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Screen-cap formatting (was RE: Rhetorical question about formatt ing devices :-)
Subject:Screen-cap formatting (was RE: Rhetorical question about formatt ing devices :-) From:KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 16 Oct 2001 14:03:03 -0400
Christine Anameir said:
> In Dick's example, I would have:
> 1. In the Edit User window, enter a *User ID* and
> *Initial password*.
> < cropped screen capture showing this part of the
> window, with a
> sample ID and password filled in and the mouse pointer
> hovering over
> the Submit button >
This question is for Christine and anybody else who's interested:
How do you crop a screen cap? Just hack off everything that's
not immediately relevant...? Or do you have some visual
convention that you use to show that "this is just the currently
interesting portion of a larger screen (that we aren't bothering
to show you, just now)"?
I've seen some cropping where the cropped edges are given a
bit of blur, while any edges that correspond to window edges
are left as-is. It sorta worked... Similarly, in another example,
a ragged edge mimicking a section torn out of a window was sufficient to get
the idea across.
I've seen others that always showed a constant-size (but too
small to read) view of the program window, with a blown-up
inset for the current menu or form/field item. It sorta worked
quite well...
I'm wondering if there are other approaches that make other
writers (and maybe their audiences) happy.
Also, do you make an effort to keep the text size roughly
constant across the screen caps in a dock, or is priority
given to the page-space occupied by a screen-cap, with less
emphasis on consistent readability?
Thanks,
/kevin
Kevin McLauchlan
kmclauchlan at Chrysalis-ITS dot com
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