At 10:15 PM -0700 6/6/2002, Troy Rollins wrote: >1) we need a scripting cookbook. Preferably printed, and we have no >problem with the concept of paying for it (like the manuals.)
Next version. It is being worked on even as I type (well, ten seconds before I started typing, and probably ten seconds after I finish, anyway). >2) in the Rev on-line docs - all links should have color or some >indication of being "hot". It is EXTREMELY poor design to have hot text >which is based on invisible hotspots. Sorry, but no. Let me explain. The hot spots on a web page (to take one example) are generally primary: that is, they are gateways to information that all readers are presumably interested in. Given this, the visual measles that afflicts most web pages is a reasonable price to pay; it makes the page less readable, but it helps you find the links. The clickable hot spots in Revolution's documentation are of two kinds: Transcript terms and glossary entries. The Transcript terms are primary, and they're marked with boldface - which compromises readability somewhat, but 1) makes them easy to find and 2) prevents problems where a Transcript term is also an English word, and therefore might cause confusion if it weren't marked in some way. (E.g. references to the "it" variable: "Therefore, if you need to use the value of it, make sure none of these commands is executed between the time you set it and the time you read its value.") Failing to mark a primary hotspot is indeed bad design, because the assumption is that all users are interested in this further information, and not marking it is making the user hunt for it. Glossary entries, on the other hand, are not primary sources of information; they're not going to be useful, generally speaking, unless the term defined is one you don't know. If you don't understand a word, clicking it to see whether a definition is available is a fairly natural thing to do, whether the word is marked or not. But clicking the glossary entry for a term you already know is a waste of time, and not something the user should be invited or prompted to do. Marking the glossary entries also makes the documentation very difficult to read because it introduces so much visual distraction. I keep the underlineLinks turned on when I'm editing, so I can see what I'm doing, and I can tell you it's not a pretty sight and not easy to read for sense. It's too much harm to both readability and usability for too little gain, in this case. -- Jeanne A. E. DeVoto ~ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Runtime Revolution Limited - The Solution for Software Development http://www.runrev.com/ _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
