DreamCard Review-PCPLUS

[Frank D. Engel, Jr.]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


On Dec 22, 2004, at 5:55 PM, Gordon Webster wrote:
> We should concede them a minor point about the rev
> documentation though. Yes, all the info is there -
> somewhere - but it's arranged more like a jigsaw
> puzzle than a book and when I'm trying to learn a new
> programming language, a book is a whole lot easier.

I like the way you put this.  Yes, a jigsaw puzzle is about right.  The 
arrangement of the Rev docs makes for a great reference for people who 
already know exactly what they are looking for, or are at least 
familiar enough to have a grasp on the terminology.  They make for a 
rather pathetic learning tool if you are not already familiar with Rev, 
or at least with HyperCard or something quite similar.

What is really needed is a Tutorial, which actively walks new users 
through their first few projects.  Not the video things on RevOnline 
(though they are definitely a step in the right direction), but more 
like the "wizard"/"assistant" type interfaces used in some software:  
Step 1: this is what we are about to do (click next), Step 2: do this, 
then this, here is why, then click next, ...

Anyone remember the Apple Guide?  Those nice red circles that pointed 
you visually to exactly what the help text was referring to?  Or how 
about the fact that if you missed a step, the Apple Guide detected that 
and actually helped you to do it, pointing out in the meantime exactly 
what you missed?

(Anyone have a clue why this was left out of OS X?  I think it was one 
of the best online help systems ever created!)

There should be an "orientation" tutorial which walks new users through 
the very basics of working with Rev and rudimentary scripting (on 
mouseUp go to next card end mouseUp), and a series of similar tutorials 
for advanced topics, such as one on inheritance, one on chunk 
expressions, one on the geometry manager, one (actually several) on 
database access, etc.

These tutorials need to cover the topics fairly thoroughly.


In addition to the tutorials, it would be good for Rev to beef up the 
"Topics" section of the documentation to include virtually all features 
of Transcript.  The "Topics" section would act as a good complement to 
the tutorials, to help users fill in the blanks after completing a 
tutorial.  There should probably be a one-to-one correspondence between 
tutorial categories and topics categories:  for each tutorial or series 
of tutorials, more documentation can be found in the "Topics" category 
with the same name.


> All that said, IMHO rev wins hand down!

So true.

- -----------------------------------------------------------
Frank D. Engel, Jr.  <fde101 at fjrhome.net>

$ ln -s /usr/share/kjvbible /usr/manual
$ true | cat /usr/manual | grep "John 3:16"
John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life.
$
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin)

iD8DBQFByuRC7aqtWrR9cZoRAjouAJwIvZRxTnrZfYqcY2I3xt3pps44LgCfWSCp
h7k0fbScLOAZ9DO0WaTr7ts=
=88gk
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----



___________________________________________________________
$0 Web Hosting with up to 120MB web space, 1000 MB Transfer
10 Personalized POP and Web E-mail Accounts, and much more.
Signup at www.doteasy.com