Documentation & Books

[Mark Wieder]

Ken-

Wednesday, July 7, 2004, 3:01:54 PM, you wrote:

KR> That said (and my blood pressure reduced), I *can* imagine that someone who
KR> is looking for the right token to work with arrays would go to the TLD and
KR> search for "array". However you'll note that the only time you get nothing
KR> as a result is when the popup to the left of the field says "Filter with:"
KR> or "Scroll to:"; if you actually pick "Search for:", looking for "array"
KR> provides a lot of items (although granted, many of them are not applicable).

I think switching from "Filter with" to "Search" is a far from obvious
thing to do. Also, it does *nothing* until you press return, which is
a different paradigm from the automatic narrowing-down that happens
when you have "filter" selected (in which case pressing return just
results in a beep).

Just for fun, though, I changed to Search mode and searched for
"array". I came up with 24 hits and working down the list it's not
until the fifth item (the [] keyword) where you actually get some
relevance as to how to work with arrays. I find the "Search
Documentation" link much more useful overall, as I can never keep
track of whether I had previously found something in the Tutorials or
in the Cookbook or as an example in the Dictionary.

KR> However IMHO the point is moot, as 2.3 will have a revised interface for
KR> getting through the docs, so I'd suggest taking a look at that *first* and
KR> then making suggestions later after we've all had a chance to digest it and
KR> work with it.

Point taken.

-- 
-Mark Wieder
 mwieder at ahsoftware.net