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Subject:RE: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help From:"Leonard C. Porrello" <Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- SoleraTec -dot- com> To:"Robert Lauriston" <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>, "TECHWR-L Writing" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:56:14 -0800
I don't think the question of navigation and printing buttons is
either/or. The buttons _could_ be redundant and confusing, but it really
depends on what they actually do and how they play with the browser
window and other graphical elements in the help window.
In the help I create, the embedded Forward and Back buttons walk through
the tree. The Back button does not necessarily take me back to the
previous page I was viewing. The Print button prints just the help
contents (without browser window flotsam).
Check out the following: helpandmanual.com/help. Although I generally
don't care for the esthetics of the help, I don't find the forward,
back, top, and print buttons redundant or confusing in the least. To the
contrary, since I often have several tabs open simultaneously, the
buttons in the help enable me to more easily stay in the help world. In
other words, I find the navigation is obvious and intuitive.
Leonard
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
om] On Behalf Of Robert Lauriston
Sent: Monday, January 18, 2010 8:47 AM
To: TECHWR-L Writing
Subject: Re: Previous, Next and Print buttons in Help
I think it's redundant and confusing to add Previous, Next, or Print
buttons to the content header when they already exist in the viewer.
To me it looks weird and unprofessional.
So for CHM, no.
For Web help, maybe yes for Previous and Next, if you're not using an
output format such as WebWorks help or OmniHelp that adds those using
Javascript or whatever.
I would put a Print in the content header only if it was going to do
something more than just invoke the browser's print command.
On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Saunders, Ian
<ISaunders -at- syntellect -dot- com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> My team is debating whether to put Previous page, Next page and Print
buttons directly into each Help topic (Web Help and CHMs), or to make do
with those available from the browser (we use IE for web access).
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