Re: SWX Documentation-Matt Lombard Nails It
- From: Bo <bo@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:22:58 -0000
On Jun 28, 10:25 am, samurai <sammer...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 08:28:25 -0700, Buddy Jim <z.bu...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
For those of you who do not read Matt Lombard's blog (http://
www.dezignstuff.com/blog/) his latest entry covers a topic that has
upset me for years, the lack of documentation on the software that we
use. Our site has been using SWX since '97 and in that time we have
seen the quality of the documentation steadily decrease from a
complete manual to this last release, which came with a small pamphlet
and a pad of paper. We have 15 seats of SWX plus a few seats of Cosmos
so our yearly maintenance fee is quite considerable. Would it kill SWX
to at least create a .PDF file that would explain how to use SWX and
maybe some direction as to how to get the most out the software? Every
time I go to SWX World I ask for the same things when I fill out the
questionnaires (less bugs and a complete set of documentation) but
nobody seems to care. I do not need a new interface I just want to use
what is already there. I hope Matt does not mind me including an
excerpt from his blog but what he says needs to get out and hopefully
if enough people talk to their VAR's or anyone else that will listen
maybe the message will get back to SWX headquarters.
A quote from Matt's blog dated June 27th
"Selling productivity would mean that SW comes with a complete set of
documentation. I don't care at this point if it is printed or
electronic, I just want the information in whatever format I can get
it. Holding back information - essentially holding information hostage
- in practical terms means that SW users everywhere are frustrated
with the tool because they don't know that the power to do ______
already lies within the grasp of their mouse. There should be no
"hidden functionality". This is not some video game where a sense of
wonder at finding a secret room is reward enough, we are talking about
people's livelihoods here. Full disclosure. I bought something. What
is it that I bought? Oh, I have to figure it out for myself what I
bought? I have to in essence reverse engineer the software to figure
out how to work with it?
Paying customers are entitled to full documentation. "
Until SWX does come out with a user manual I recommend buying The
Solidworks Bible from Matt. A book like this shows how ineffective the
help files from SWX are.
Buddy Jim
But with an electronic .pdf or .chm, it can be updated, corrected,
added to easliy. Just think how long it took Matt to write the first
version of his book, to publishing it, and making sure everything is
correct. I'm sure he used an electronic version before going to
print.
Searching an electronic version is way faster, and provides more links
to other topics. I used to like hard copy books, still have their
place, but in SW, to carry around Matt's bible is not feasible, or
just have one copy sitting on a shelf somewhere, or on someone else's
desk.
I do agree that the documentaion should be more elabroate, maybe
that's where SW should hand it over to people like Matt, to write the
electronic version to be included with SW. I wish they would put the
effort into expanding the Help in SW with the savings not going to
hardcopy.
The good thing about a book is they are hard to copy. But an ebook
can be bought/sold on ebay, emailed, etc. That's bad for Matt.
samurai.
My 2 Rants Of The Day are inadequate search methods in digital manuals
and help.
Searching only words it is still sometimes difficult to find what I am
looking for.
It would be nice to place limits by searching only the chapter you
need like "Surfaces" or "Loft", so you get rid of all the other
garbage results.
The human mind is set to recognize visual patterns. SolidWorks' Help
file list of Help Results search shows "Title" but has virtually NO
VISUAL CLUES. Even Acrobat pdf files have thumbnails of pages, and
those are often the clue needed to get to one of 15 or 50 pages I
need.
Ideally, the thumnail goes half or full size if I were to put my
cursor on the thumbnail for even faster searches.
Meanwhile, you can imagine why I still work happily mostly on SWks
2006 because I have so few slowdowns, and limited amount of learning I
must do to keep doing work.
Bo
.
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