Re: graying out part of a graphic

[techielmb <techielmb -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

I did this once a few years ago, and the service techs
and customers really liked it. I just couldn't
remember how I did it!

It's screens on machinery, which makes it a different
type of audience. Maybe that is why they like it,
while an average computer user wouldn't like it. The
screens that I'm putting in the manual include tables
that tell what each button on the screen does. But,
with 30 buttons on a screen, the table gets very long
and spans several pages. This way, I can do just a
chunk of buttons at a time, and the table describing
them can fit on the same page or the facing page.



--- Paul Pehrson <paulpehrson -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:

> Interesting. I misunderstood your question. Now that
> I see what you were
> asking, I want to point out that I think that you
> *may be* doing your users
> a disservice when you include screen shots that
> don't look like how the
> users' UI will actually look when they are
> performing the same operation.
> 
> Depending on the technical aptitude of your
> audience, some users might be
> confused by having all other buttons in the
> documentation appear to be
> inactive, when their buttons on their screen are
> active.
> 
> And, as was mentioned by somebody else, it is a
> time-intensive process that
> you have to repeat every time an element in the UI
> changes.
> 
> Would it be better for your users to just show the
> button set they will be
> working with and crop the rest of the buttons out of
> the picture? (That is a
> real question; only you can answer this, because
> only you know your app and
> your audience.)
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> Best wishes,
> 
> Paul Pehrson
> Midvale, UT
> 
> On 10/26/06, techielmb <techielmb -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks to everyone for your suggestions. Before my
> > post even made it to the list, I found something
> that
> > works well in my situation. (Isn't that the way it
> > goes, all you have to do is ask the experts and a
> > solution manifests itself. ;)
> >
> > I select the part of the screen I want to show,
> then
> > invert the selection, and use
> Filter>Sketch>Photocopy.
> > The buttons on our screens have graphics, not
> text.
> > There are a lot of colors, but the background is
> gray,
> > so the white background of the Photocopy filter
> works
> > great.
> >
> > Thanks again for your suggestions!
> >
> >
> 
> -- 
> Paul Pehrson
> Midvale, UT
> www.paulpehrson.com     blog.paulpehrson.com
> 


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