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Subject:Re: The Burden of Screen Captures From:"Mike O." <obie1121 -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Fri, 22 Nov 2002 13:55:43 -0800 (PST)
> in my opinion a good manual includes both a task-oriented
> section and a reference section where all dialog boxes and
> menus are explained.
I agree, usually... I'll write either or both, depending on
what I think is needed for the project. I'm a little wary of
making a rule that says all manuals always need both.
The MS approach (since Win95) has been to document menus and
dialogs via tooltips and context-sensitive help, rather than in
dedicated topics in their manuals. That's just for their
consumer products; IIRC their networking and admin docs contain
lots of screenshots with data, but always in the context of a
procedure, not in a reference section. Of course you don't have
to follow MS's example; and in fact it is becoming less and less
relevant.
On the other hand, try getting quotes per page for translation
(times 10 languages), then see if your company still wants to do
both sections. I'm not being facetious; this is part of the
reason companies started delivering reduced documentation.
> Surely I am not the only one who gets annoyed by e.g. Adobe's
> approach in their manuals, - "You can do this or that" or
> "You can do so and so" instead of detailed explanations of
> the dialog boxes?
Well, the "You can do this..." is supposed to be a
cross-reference to a procedure. If it's not, I agree it's
useless.
Sometimes I am more annoyed when a manual has a rule that all
fields and all menu items have to be documented -- then I have
to wade through "Enter your name in the name field" and "Click
Save on the File menu to save the file" etc.
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