Re: Doc Design and Conventions

Subject: Re: Doc Design and Conventions
From: Robert Lauriston <robert -at- lauriston -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:57:45 -0700

I'd find that more useful as a PDF, so I could search for the command I want.

I regularly encounter documentation that does a pretty good job of
telling me what I could figure out for myself, if I COULD FIND WHERE
IN THE MENU SYSTEM THEY BURIED THE DAMN COMMAND.

For example, a couple of years ago I used a program called Document!X,
a tool that generated an API reference for a COM ActiveX library by
extracting information from a TLB file (part of the application) and
incorporating comments, sample code, links, etc. maintained
separately. It was very slick at what it did, but I had to contact
tech support to find several of the most basic commands, and had to
write in-house documentation filling in the blanks in the doc.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:35 AM, Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:
> The last software user documentation I did was a menu tree on a plastic-coated
> card that listed the parameters on the dialogs each dropdown opened, plus all
> the "bubble help" blurbs the programmers inserted into the program.  The API doc
> was probably 50X the size of the user docs.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all?&#160; Author,
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at:
http://www.doctohelp.com/

Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40web.techwr-l.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.

Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat


Follow-Ups:

References:
Doc Design and Conventions: From: Chris Despopoulos
Re: Doc Design and Conventions: From: Gene Kim-Eng

Previous by Author: Re: 508 Compliance - Common Readability Issues
Next by Author: Re: Doc Design and Conventions
Previous by Thread: Re: Doc Design and Conventions
Next by Thread: Re: Doc Design and Conventions


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads