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Topic: Help File, Improving the Help File!< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
johnber
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Group: Members
Posts: 6
Joined: May 2004
Posted: June 02 2004,02:11

Hi Magnus!
I don't want too sound to "whingy" or something.
Since you program no matter what is still the Best of Taggers.

but i found your help file, how could i say .."maze like" perhaps!
(Written by a Pro for Pro's)  :confused:
you are redirected all the time to other areas which makes it quite hard to remenber what one was supposed to look for!
Furthermore there is quite a few times when looking at the File index in the Help file where one cannot see a match for a button  or even a tab description.

I believe that for anybody and especially new users.
pages with  screenshots of the different tabs in mp3/tag studio
with clickable areas over the different buttons
giving you a small popup window with tooltips leading to exemple of use.
Would be more than helpful in understanding the basic of the program, which is such a powerfull beast.
By looking at the entire archive of post in this forum. It seems that it would also make your life more a "Life"
since you have to repeat yourself  quite a lot!

Just my 2 Cents!
Thanks for considering. :)

PS:
this could also be Community job located on the web. (Here)  :idea:
a bit like all this video editing sites one finds everywhere.
with tips how to do divx vcd..etc..etc..
What we need are Pro's with mp3/tag & Some with Html.
Any takers!
 3:-)
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Magnus Brading
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Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 2751
Joined: Aug. 2002
Posted: June 02 2004,04:40

Quote
you are redirected all the time to other areas which makes it quite hard to remenber what one was supposed to look for

A help file page being full of hyperlinks does not mean that you are necessarily supposed to follow them all. On the contrary, if you are familiar with all basic knowledge needed to understand the topic currently explained, you should not need to follow any of the hyperlinks, but instead only read the current page from top to bottom. The hyperlinks are only there in case you would need clarification of, or more details about a subject, and the only alternative to this would be to include explanations of all basic features on all help pages, which would result in quite the mess of repeated text everywhere, making it hard to find what you are really looking for. Once you have familiarized yourself with the basic concepts of Mp3/Tag Studio (which you do by following a hyperlink whenever you don't understand what the words on it mean) I'm sure you will agree with me on that.

About clickable screenshots of every screen in the program, sure, this might be nice. I have excluded it for two reasons, first the helpfile would become quite large because of this, but secondly and more important, as soon as the interface would change, the helpfile would need to be upgraded with quite some effort, recreating all the links in the entire affected screenshot pages and such. Instead I have tried to focus on a consistent GUI, intuitive enough to be workable from a text-only (although quite rich) help file. I might reconsider this in the future though.

Thanks for the input anyway, if you have any specific questions fow which you can't find the answer in the help file, you can always use this forum anyway (which btw many people will still do no matter how detailed the helpfile is, according to my experience ;)).

And remember, you can always press F1 inside the program to be taken to the help file section most relevant for your currently selected control/feature in the program GUI!

--------------
Software author and website owner
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1 replies since June 02 2004,02:11 < Next Oldest | Next Newest >

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