Re: How would you

["Peter Ring, PRC" <prc -at- ISA -dot- DKNET -dot- DK>]

Kevin Freeman wrote:

>      I have a question for you all.  I was going over a section of a user's
>      guide that a programmer wrote, and he had a section involving software
>      fixes.  Right now, he has them listed as:
>
>      1.
>      2.
>      3.
>
>      etc.  I asked him why, that numbers are generally used to denote steps
>      in procedures and the like.  He responded by he likes numbers because
>      someone else can refer to the document and say "Let't take a look at
>      fix #3."
>
>      What do you all think?  Is using numbers or bullets in this situation
>      the best.  I think this might be a decent topic for discussion, what
>      say you?

You are right, 1., 2., etc is generally reserved for sequential
procedure steps, and bullets for non-sequential lists.

But there are other ways to solve it, and you were close to a
solution yourself. For example:

"List of error fixes: [then they know it's a list, not a procedure]
---------------------
#1      afdalks sakj sdja ...
#2      oiufaen s asdf sdsfs ...
#3      skjaslk sa gskjj ..."

PS: Unless it's a programme where the user almost for sure had the
old version, I would put it into a separate document, e.g. a
BUGFIX.TXT file.

Greetings from Denmark

Peter Ring
PRC (Peter Ring Consultants)
- specialists in user friendly manuals and audits on manuals.
prc -at- isa -dot- dknet -dot- dk
http://isa.dknet.dk/~prc/index.html
- the "User Friendly Manuals" website with links, bibliography, list
  of prof. associations, and tips for technical writers.

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