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Re: Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!

Subject: Re: Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!
From: "Harry Bacheler" <hbacheler -at- aol -dot- com>
To: "Pro TechWriter" <pro -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com>, <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 13:27:34 -0500

To All:

At the Johnson Space Center in Houston there was a project called SAIL (Shuttle Avionics Integration Lab).

It wat written up in one of the first or second years of publication of Fast Company (highly recommended).

One of the methods of supporting the project was to have everything 'flowed' out to show every possibility that needed to be considered for the development of the communicaitons between the ground and the shuttle. This was done BEFORE the first line of code was written. I understand that there were 6 million lines of code.

The document written defining the Software Capability Model refers to the project.

Since I have been in the software and documentaiton business since 1970 I have found that doing flowcharts/process flows and similar methods, I was able to do a lot more if I 'flowed' the process first. Even developing the structure of a document is aided by using flowcharts. They don't have to be elegant, just able to be revised as information becomes know.

My advise - use flow charts to develop your thoughs and work.

Sincerely,

Harry

----- Original Message ----- From: "Pro TechWriter" <pro -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com>
To: <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
Cc: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!


What about a flow chart? Could you break it out by functional groups
(instead of screens) and either do flows with decisions, or if...then..
statements (or tables)?

Sometimes if a process is very complicated, I start with a flow chart
anyway, before I start writing. It's especially useful to use post-it notes
and a whiteboard, if the process is very complex.

Hope this helps.
PT


On 2/21/07, neilson -at- windstream -dot- net <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net> wrote:

I'm looking for ideas here... I'm documenting the configuration of dozens
of different kinds of software that are used on the company's computers.
Most of the them use some sort of configuration script or XML or whatever.
To document the configuration I can include the file or refer to it, or
include a portion of it, possibly with explanations.

One program, however, is configured interactively. The configuration seems
to consist of whatever the tech typed into the config screens as they went
past his eyes.

I tried writing up a precis of the answers that differed from the default,
and it's horribly confusing. The obvious alternative, a book full of screen
shots (95 of them--they're hard to see, and a lot of them are nearly
identical), would be next to useless.

Has any of you ever successfully attacked this problem? What did you do?

I'm hoping there's a tool or command to produce a config listing, and that
our tech has merely not discovered it yet. I cannot see how the software
vendor could develop a product for which a config listing could not be
produced.

Thanks,
--Peter Neilson
laboring somewhere in North Carolina, probably under a delusion.

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References:
Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!: From: neilson
Re: Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!: From: Pro TechWriter

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