On Dec 8, 2006, at 5:26 AM, karderio wrote: > ... > On Thu, 2006-12-07 at 01:34 +1300, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote: > ... >> If I was having trouble opening an Excel spreadsheet in Gnumeric, and >> I didn't yet know that Gnumeric didn't offer any help on opening >> Excel >> spreadsheets specifically, I would get a bit annoyed if I read through >> Gnumeric's "Opening a file" help, only to realize that it was >> word-for-word the same as the "Opening a file" section in almost every >> other application. > > I'm not sure exactly what would be annoying about seeing the same thing > twice...
It would waste time, it would make people less willing to seek further help, and it would make them grumpy. All of these would make success less likely. > ... > As it strands, we must (should) explain the "open file" function for > every app. > ... No, really, you shouldn't. :-) Help (on-screen help, that is, not manuals) should concentrate on the things that people are likely to want help with, because cluttering the help with other stuff makes the helpful stuff harder to find. The helpful stuff should not include something as simple as opening files, unless there is something badly wrong with the filepicker (in which case, fix the filepicker instead!), *or* there is something special about opening files in that particular application (e.g. "my Excel spreadsheet isn't opening properly, what can I do?"). What would be cool is an "&operatingsystem; Basics" tutorial that teaches people how to open files in general, along with other basic tasks such as using the clipboard and manipulating windows. I think that would be the only appropriate place for help on such topics. Cheers -- Matthew Paul Thomas http://mpt.net.nz/ _______________________________________________ gnome-doc-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-doc-list
