Documentation & Books

[Chipp Walters]

Marian,

The dictionary is not a substitute for learning how the language works. 
If you read through the documentation, the tutorials, the recipes, 
you'll understand much quicker and better how transcript is coded.

Topics like chunk expressions need to be understood before attempting to 
code them.

In particular, I recommend going to the All Documentation by Category 
and clicking on each item on the left and reading all of the "Abouts" 
for that item (and the "Recipes" if you have time). You'll learn a lot. 
It's not necessary to memorize the commands, just remember where you saw 
them (in the About section:-)

best,

Chipp

Marian Petrides wrote:

> Actually, as soon as I sent my reply to this, I was presented with a 
> perfect example of how you can get lost in the dox.
> 
> I had been looking for the method to extract eight characters from a 25 
> char string, starting at char 5.
> 
> In answering, Jacque suggested that I could have found the answer by 
> looking up "character" in the transcript dictionary and asked if I had 
> tried that.  I had looked up "string" and I had also used the SEARCH 
> DOCUMENTATION box entering "find character in a string" and "extract 
> character from a string."  This is an example of someone knowing that 
> the other search box exists and, as we were discussing, that it should 
> yield the most hits and using it--wrongly it would appear.
> 
> M
> :::following my breadcrumb trail, or attempting to::::
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 7, 2004, at 6:01 PM, Ken Ray wrote:
> 
>> Amen, Chipp...
>>
>> <irked>
>> Sorry, but it is difficult for me to believe that some one who opens the
>> documentation for the first time (seeing the Roadmap page) where there 
>> is a
>> "Search the Documentation..." link would think they would get *more* 
>> results
>> by clicking on an *item* in the list ("Transcript Language 
>> Dictionary") and
>> then executing a search. Sorry, but the first page says "About the
>> Documentation", then "All Documentation by Category", then "Search the
>> Documentation". It isn't hard to make the cognitive "leap" that searching
>> the documentation means searching ALL of the documentation. Come on, 
>> people!
>> </irked>
>>
>> That said (and my blood pressure reduced), I *can* imagine that 
>> someone who
>> is looking for the right token to work with arrays would go to the TLD 
>> and
>> search for "array". However you'll note that the only time you get 
>> nothing
>> as a result is when the popup to the left of the field says "Filter 
>> with:"
>> or "Scroll to:"; if you actually pick "Search for:", looking for "array"
>> provides a lot of items (although granted, many of them are not 
>> applicable).
>>
>> Perhaps it has more to do with the arrangement of the documentation 
>> than the
>> docs itself - perhaps the "Search the Documentation" link should be more
>> prominent, or that the results are weighted, or some combination. For
>> example, when I search the docs on "array", I see "How to create an array
>> variable" pretty quickly in the list.
>>
>> However IMHO the point is moot, as 2.3 will have a revised interface for
>> getting through the docs, so I'd suggest taking a look at that *first* 
>> and
>> then making suggestions later after we've all had a chance to digest 
>> it and
>> work with it.
>>
>> And with that, I take my leave of this subject until the new docs are 
>> out...
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> Ken Ray
>> Sons of Thunder Software
>> Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
>> Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com
>>> [mailto:use-revolution-bounces at lists.runrev.com] On Behalf Of
>>> Chipp Walters
>>> Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 4:41 PM
>>> To: How to use Revolution
>>> Subject: Re: Documentation & Books
>>>
>>>
>>> Aw c'mon, it's not as hard as digging for diamonds. Just look
>>> under the
>>> "HELP" menu (funny it should be *there*) ;-)
>>>
>>>
>>> Marian Petrides wrote:
>>>
>>>> The point being that the cognoscenti know to use the Search
>>>> Documentation tool, but a rank beginner would not.
>>>
>>>
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>>> use-revolution mailing list
>>> use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
>>> http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
>>>
>>
>>
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