MajorH
01-14-2000, 07:36 PM
Not arguing ... just advising on what my motivations are.
I have gone to using Adobe Acrobat PDF files for everything - online help as
well as documentation. For example, in TacOps 3.0 the online help file that is
accessable while the game is being played is actually the full 200+ page
manual.
As I was finishing v3 I found that I had a manual in Mac Word format, a manual
in Windows Word format, a manual in Acrobat PDF format, an online help file in
Mac Guide format, and an online help file in Windows help format - everything
needed updating. I also had a tutorial in each format. On top of that I had to
provide a French translation of each item. As a 'one man band' I was spending
all my time screwing around with the documentation - especially recompiling and
relinking the online help files - with no end in sight. With a little new code
the game engine could use one PDF formatted file for the online help so I
reduced my problem set down to basically one file for everything and it is in a
format that works well on both Macs and PCs.
I do remain 'old school' in one area. I continue to format the manual/online
help as if it was a book. I pretty much follow the tradtional book conventions
except that I have both a booklike table of contents with hypertext links and a
side bar table of contents with links. The user can simply turn pages if he
wants to but digital hot links and text search features are also in place if he
wants to quickly zero in on a particular topic.
Although I have gone to just digital documentation I don't care to pitch this
as 'if you want hard copy then you can print it'. I think that line is
disingenuous. For a lot of folks printing a decent sized manual is going to
burn up a ream of paper and most of an expensive ink jet ink cartridge. That
makes for a mighty expensive hard copy manual unless you do it at work http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif.
Also you end up with a two inch tall stack of unbound paper that doesn't rest
very well on a book shelf.
Bottom line - I wish it wasn't so but most folks don't seem to care ... its
faster, easier, and cheaper for me as a developer ... as a consumer I have now
gotten used to online documentation (getting a big monitor helped) ... each
quarter fewer and fewer software publishers provide printed manuals and the
printed manuals that are provided seem less and less useful (put in mainly to
make the box heavier?).
I'll pay you back by trying to not charge as much as others.
------------------
Best regards, Major H
majorh@mac.com
I have gone to using Adobe Acrobat PDF files for everything - online help as
well as documentation. For example, in TacOps 3.0 the online help file that is
accessable while the game is being played is actually the full 200+ page
manual.
As I was finishing v3 I found that I had a manual in Mac Word format, a manual
in Windows Word format, a manual in Acrobat PDF format, an online help file in
Mac Guide format, and an online help file in Windows help format - everything
needed updating. I also had a tutorial in each format. On top of that I had to
provide a French translation of each item. As a 'one man band' I was spending
all my time screwing around with the documentation - especially recompiling and
relinking the online help files - with no end in sight. With a little new code
the game engine could use one PDF formatted file for the online help so I
reduced my problem set down to basically one file for everything and it is in a
format that works well on both Macs and PCs.
I do remain 'old school' in one area. I continue to format the manual/online
help as if it was a book. I pretty much follow the tradtional book conventions
except that I have both a booklike table of contents with hypertext links and a
side bar table of contents with links. The user can simply turn pages if he
wants to but digital hot links and text search features are also in place if he
wants to quickly zero in on a particular topic.
Although I have gone to just digital documentation I don't care to pitch this
as 'if you want hard copy then you can print it'. I think that line is
disingenuous. For a lot of folks printing a decent sized manual is going to
burn up a ream of paper and most of an expensive ink jet ink cartridge. That
makes for a mighty expensive hard copy manual unless you do it at work http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif.
Also you end up with a two inch tall stack of unbound paper that doesn't rest
very well on a book shelf.
Bottom line - I wish it wasn't so but most folks don't seem to care ... its
faster, easier, and cheaper for me as a developer ... as a consumer I have now
gotten used to online documentation (getting a big monitor helped) ... each
quarter fewer and fewer software publishers provide printed manuals and the
printed manuals that are provided seem less and less useful (put in mainly to
make the box heavier?).
I'll pay you back by trying to not charge as much as others.
------------------
Best regards, Major H
majorh@mac.com