TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I'm writng a user manual for an Oracle-forms-based radar database
subsystem. There is a great deal of data to be entered into one set of
related tables, so the forms designer has used tab pages to place the
fields on the form. The tab pages are nested, in that a second row of
related tabs appear when certain tab pages have the focus, something
like this (if it appears correctly in your e-mail editor):
____ ______ _____ _____ ________ _______ _____
| Site | Airport | Route | Radar | Altimeter | External | etc....|
------------------- | -------- |
-----------------------------------------------
_____|_____|_____
| Airway | SID | STAR |
------------------------------
When directing the user to some field on the SID tab, for example, I'm
working on this construction:
To enter the starting point for the first SID at Iqualuit Airport,
1. Click the Route tab
The Airway, SID and STAR nested tabs appear.
2. Click the SID tab, then click in the Starting Point field.
The user representative likes "nested", and some members of the
development team like "sub-tabs", but I'm inclined to avoid either and
simply say, "The Airway, SID and STAR tabs appear".
Checking the MMoS, I find references to the correct use of "tab" and
"tab page", but no guidance on the nested situation.
Any thoughts?
Larry Sherman
Chief and Only Docologist, Documentology
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available now at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
TECH*COMM 2001 Conference, July 15-18 in Washington, DC
The Help Technology Conference, August 21-24 in Boston, MA
Details and online registration at http://www.SolutionsEvents.com
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
