Re: [Elecraft] K4 On-screen documentation
On 9/15/2020 2:52 PM, Rod Hardman wrote: Their Silicon Valley sense of good User Interface! Give at least some of the credit for the UI to Chief Engineer and co-owner N6KR, who is a very active operator. I've worked him several times on CW. Also credit engineer K6XX, a world class contester, AND Elecraft's long established practice of very actively listening to their users. Long before I became an Elecraft K2 user in 2003, their email reflector had been running for years, and both owners read it every day. 73, Jim K9YC __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
Re: [Elecraft] K4 On-screen documentation
Another one of the many reasons I am an Elecraft fanboy - Their Silicon Valley sense of good User Interface! Documentation and its integration to the physical operation of the product is something the best companies in the Bay Area do very well. Well done, can’t wait to see it. (but Im patient!) /rod On Sep 15, 2020, at 17:22, Rick Tavan wrote: I just had the opportunity to review a draft of the K4 on-screen documentation. It's excellent! It's fully hyper-linked with HTML browser capabilities so I could jump around, following links to my heart's content and eventually returning to where I began reading. It includes not only the anticipated explanations of each connector, physical switch, knob, and on-screen button, but also procedural operating instructions on how to do the things one needs to do with a radio. When loaded into a K4, it will be readable like a typical hypertext document with a Table of Contents at the top. Also, you will be able to tap a button to see help on the most-recently used function. So if you do something and aren't sure what happened, just ask and it will pop up an explanation of that control. Or tap something just to queue up help on how it works. Slick! I read the material on a computer browser but it was already white-on-black as I expect it to be on the K4 screen. Function names are bracketed and color-coded to distinguish physical switches, touch controls, and knobs. Hold-functions of switches and touch controls are in yellow instead of white and preceded by a modifier like "Hold" so I think it will be very usable by hams with compromised color vision. There are some handy pictures of panel and screen snippets that illustrate references beyond the shadow of doubt, but not so many as to make the document bulky or awkward. This Help system sets a standard that more technically advanced transceivers and other devices should evolve to meet. This text is also serving as the "seed" for the full, printable manual. I expect that manual to be in typical Elecraft style, with loads of diagrams and highly detailed explanations. I'm not sure I'll need it very often, though, since the on-screen material is so comprehensive. Please be merciful to Elecraft and refrain from immediate calls for a public version. That will follow soon, I'm sure, after the next round of revisions and additions. 73, /Rick N6XI Field Tester/Proof Reader -- Rick Tavan Truckee and Saratoga, CA __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to va3on.li...@gmail.com __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
[Elecraft] K4 On-screen documentation
I just had the opportunity to review a draft of the K4 on-screen documentation. It's excellent! It's fully hyper-linked with HTML browser capabilities so I could jump around, following links to my heart's content and eventually returning to where I began reading. It includes not only the anticipated explanations of each connector, physical switch, knob, and on-screen button, but also procedural operating instructions on how to do the things one needs to do with a radio. When loaded into a K4, it will be readable like a typical hypertext document with a Table of Contents at the top. Also, you will be able to tap a button to see help on the most-recently used function. So if you do something and aren't sure what happened, just ask and it will pop up an explanation of that control. Or tap something just to queue up help on how it works. Slick! I read the material on a computer browser but it was already white-on-black as I expect it to be on the K4 screen. Function names are bracketed and color-coded to distinguish physical switches, touch controls, and knobs. Hold-functions of switches and touch controls are in yellow instead of white and preceded by a modifier like "Hold" so I think it will be very usable by hams with compromised color vision. There are some handy pictures of panel and screen snippets that illustrate references beyond the shadow of doubt, but not so many as to make the document bulky or awkward. This Help system sets a standard that more technically advanced transceivers and other devices should evolve to meet. This text is also serving as the "seed" for the full, printable manual. I expect that manual to be in typical Elecraft style, with loads of diagrams and highly detailed explanations. I'm not sure I'll need it very often, though, since the on-screen material is so comprehensive. Please be merciful to Elecraft and refrain from immediate calls for a public version. That will follow soon, I'm sure, after the next round of revisions and additions. 73, /Rick N6XI Field Tester/Proof Reader -- Rick Tavan Truckee and Saratoga, CA __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
