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Re: Style conventions: Pipelines vs. Arrows, Single step style vs . Sentence.
Subject:Re: Style conventions: Pipelines vs. Arrows, Single step style vs . Sentence. From:Kevin McLauchlan <kmclauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 14 Aug 2002 12:36:09 -0400
On Monday 12 August 2002 15:42, Tuples -at- aol -dot- com wrote:
> In a message dated 8/12/02 9:34:36 AM Mountain Standard
> Time,
>
> KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com writes:
> > My Customer Support people, and others, keep demanding
> > that I break procedures down into smaller and smaller
> > sections -- in other words, sub-headings everywhere.
> > This does make it easy to see the flow if you are
> > skimming the ToC. It also makes it easy to find your
> > spot on the page when looking away from the book
> > (to perform a task or just to rest your weary eyes...)
> > and then back to the page.
> > Both of those are good things.
>
> Forgive me, but who hired you? Who are you responsible
> to? I should think that if your ideas are better than
> your support folks are offering, then take the matter to
> the supervisor. Argue your case because it might you
> think it is valid.
The point is that to a large extent, they are correct.
The Customer Support people and the Sales Engineers
are reporting back the comments they got from actual
customers, and describing how actual customers are
using the documents.
The problem is that when I accomodate them, there are
a few places where an identifiable procedure (i.e., one
that could be set off with a level-2 heading) has only
one step.
It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and I foresee
that it will occasionally happen in future. So, I want to
set up a non-obtrusive, non-ugly visual cue to make
"Do this" info stand out from introductory and expository
text, even when the "Do this" stuff doesn't have a step
number (which is otherwise the visual flag on which we
currently rely).
I had thought of an icon, but an icon signals only the
start of the thing that it marks. I'm not sure I want to
dream up (and use) an "end" icon as well.
I thought of simply placing a shaded background
behind all portions of text that are actually critical
steps -- to distinguish from explanatory bits.
A distinguishing font would do it, I suppose.
I'm also considering some use of tables, but I
haven't come up with a style that does the job
without being overly obtrusive.
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