screen dumps in books

["Brierley, Sean" <Brierley -at- QUODATA -dot- COM>]

Hallo:


 

Anyone 
have any thoughts on the best way to handle the following?


 

I am 
writing s/w release notes for VAX/VMS-based software. One of the items
that 
programming wants is numerous screen dumps written into the release
notes. By 
screen dump, I mean one or more screen of textual information, some of
which are 
prompts at which the user types a response.


 

I am 
used to writing for Macs and Windows machines. In these environments I
am loathe 
to reproduce screens in my documentation without great reason. I see
little need 
for it. In the VAX/VMS software, it is pretty clear that the screen
dumps must 
stay. I format them in Courier to mimic the fixed-width font the user
sees and 
to provide a visual clue that this is not regular text. However, that is
not 
enough. Programming wants the lines to wrap and align as they do on the
user's 
terminal.


 

I 
explained that the 4:3 width:height ratio of the screen made it
ill-suited for 
reproduction on an 8 x 10 (after conservative margins) sheet. I offered
to make 
the book landscape but that approach is not what anyone is looking for.
I 
described that printed material did not lend itself well to the layout
seen 
on-screen, including the use of both, attention span, idea that 4-inch
line 
width may be an optimal target, etc. All very traditional.


 

From 
the LISTSERV I am looking for general opinions about including screen
dumps. 
Also, does anyone have a thought about how I should discuss this issue
with 
those who want the screen dumps to mirror the screen?


 


Thanks.


 


Sean




sean -at- quodata -dot- com

 


_____________________ 
  
Sean Brierley 
  Lead Technical 
Writer Quodata Corp. 
One Union Place 
Hartford, CT 06103 


sean -at- quodata -dot- com 
_____________________ 
  
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 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000