At 03:05 PM 1/4/06 -0800, Eric Dannewitz wrote: >You mean something like Microsoft has with it's Clippy help? Yeah. That >would be great. Something called NOTEIE or something.
You notice I didn't mention that? That was a really bad design to cover up a mess, especially with MSWord. (Look at the TGTools hover for a good implementation.) >I don't think there is a program out there that one does not need a >manual for. Cite me one. I'd like to experience this utopia. But Finale, >and other programs like Digital Performer have excellent manuals and >visual "cheats". I cited you four (Photoshop, Pagemaker, Sonar, Adobe Audition), and there are more (Sony Screenblast, Paint Shop Pro, ULead Studio, SynthEdit, Skype, Firefox, Systran, Babylon, AudioMulch, Analog Box, Powerpoint...). Tutorials are needed. Cheat-sheets are needed (especially where odd choices were made, such as Finale's small numbers). Nothing can help you if you don't understand the field, whether it's graphics or photography or notation or audio recording or typsetting or printing or translation or video. And nothing can save poorly interfaced software (Cecilia, Finale, MSWord [once you get past basic text entry and printing], even BitTorrent...) But if a manual is needed for more than occasional reference for an exception or an item not covered in tutorials, then fix the program. One feature should flow naturally from another, and its user interface should make its behavior clear. Using fix-the-program psychology and user benchmarking, eventually you'll slim the manual down -- not make it larger. No one benefits from a manual being required for software (except a guy like me, who writes documentation; I have had plenty of fights with programmers whose work is badly done). Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
