Documentation in 2.5

Dan Shafer revdan at danshafer.com
Fri Aug 27 18:45:20 EDT 2004


I have been working a good bit with 2.5b2 and have found very few major 
issues with it, and certainly none that haven't been reported.

But I'd like to be contrary for a moment here (yeah, I know...big 
shock, right?) and ask why documentation was "fixed" for 2.5 when as 
far as I was concerned it was never broken in 2.2. In fact, it is all 
but unusable for the kinds of things I use the online docs for in 2.5.

This is not to say docs in 2.2 are perfect. But for the most part, they 
at least work well.

In the online docs for 2.5, I am constantly ending up with that 
curmudgeonly dialog box that says nothing matched my search criteria. 
This happens whether I've actually finished entering my search criteria 
or not, and it happens most maddeningly when it can't find something  I 
know is there.

Case in point: the choose command.

In 2.2, I go into the Transcript Dictionary and I tell it to search for 
"choose" and it instantly comes up with the right command. I ask it to 
find "choose toolname" thinking that this might be the syntax. Boom. 
Finds it. Same for "choose tool."

Try those same things in 2.5b2. The search for "choose" brings up a 
longish list, none of which is any command, let alone the  choose 
command. (I think it might be looking for TOPICS with the word "choose" 
but I'm guessing; the UI provides zero feedback about what is going 
on.) I click on "Dictionary" with the word "choose" in the search field 
and I get a bunch of commands that have the word "choose" in their 
description. The choose command is one of them. Try " choose tool" or 
"choose toolname". Result: nothing found.

I've had this experience over and over and over again. I'm sure there 
must be some fabulous new features in the new docs or RR wouldn't have 
taken time to update them, but can we PLEASE just have them work at 
least as well as they did in 2.2?

I'm one of those strange birds who actually reads such things. If I can 
find them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Revolutionary
Author of  "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
http://www.revolutionpros.com for more info
Available at Runtime Revolution Store (http://www.runrev.com/RevPress)



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