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Tooltip or manual?

Do you use the manual or the tooltips to get help about a step?

  • Manual

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • Tooltip

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • Both

    Votes: 5 50.0%
  • Total voters
    10
  • Poll closed .
arno

arno

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Hi all,

A simple question, which source do you use to get information about how a step works? The manual or the tooltip in the GUI?

I'm asking because I get bored with updating both for each change and that often means the tooltip is less accurate then the manual. So I'm thinking of ways to keep them more in sync. But to make the best choice I want to know which one you actually use :)
 
Hi Arno

As a real newbie the manual is my bible at the moment, the tooltips just don't seem to give me the detail I need.
 
I usually click manual and do a quick search for the thing that I'm interested in. Perhaps instead of a tooltip you could right click it and open up the manual at the right page?
 
I tend to read manuals first to get an overview of the product, then tool-tips along the way. Now if you mean tool-tips such as what pops up as I try to write steps, those are very useful for me. If I had to choose between the two that way then tool-tips would win out.

But I see them having different purposes. I see a manual as a more in-depth explanation of options, more insight, showing the theory behind steps, illustrations, screenshots, examples while tool-tips provide reminders based on what I am working on at that moment. A referral so I do not need to got hunt down the answer in the manual. I would think (but could be wrong), the tool-tips would need to be updated more than that of a manual unless there are new steps, procedures, etc.,

If you are just duplicating one with the other I see no advantage of having both. Just my 2c.

Clutch
 
Hi all,

Thanks for the feedback.

With the tooltips I didn't mean the auto completion when typing steps. But the information you get when you put your mouse on the step name in the GUI.

I'm changing how the tooltips are generated a bit, so that they are less work for me to keep up to date. They will basically give an overview of what the step arguments mean. All the details will remain in the manual.
 
arno said:
...They will basically give an overview of what the step arguments mean. All the details will remain in the manual...
Click to expand...
If this seems to be a reasonable amount of work to you, Arno, and better than now, I'd say it's more than enough and precisely what each aid should provide. The manual information would always take precedence for me, particularly where I'm looking for detail and to understand specific aspects of things. A tooltip is a "barebones" reminder at best and it anyone wants more - then go to the manual.

Make sense?

ian
 
In few ocassions I pay attention to the tooltips. one always have to address to the manual if you want to know what you are doing.
 
I find those tooltips very useful, but I already found that sometimes they're not synch'ed with the manual. Since the manual is supposed to include all details I would give that a higher priority. Then again, editing the manual might take even more time with all that layouting, new compiling,... Why don't you update the tooltips for the incremental updates and only update the manual if there's a new version like v2.1?
 
Hi Thorsten,

The approach you suggest for the manual is what I do with MCX and it is lagging a few years behind now :).

For scenProc I use LaTeX for the manual, so that means I don't have to do much formatting. I just type my text in the LaTeX file and add some images if needed. The rest is done automatically. During the nightly build the manual is automatically made from the source files (I keep those sources together with the sources of the software in version control).

So I have promised to myself to keep the manual up to date. Since updating it after a long time takes even more time :)

I have now changes the tooltip code a bit. Before the tooltip text, attribute types and code completion were in three separate parts of my code for each step. That meant I was often too lazy to update them all three at the same time. Now I have put all information in one place, and the tooltip and sample text are generated from that information. So I think it should be easier for me to maintain.

I agree the tool tips are valuable, I use them myself as well (more than the manual).
 
Hi Arno,
It seems you need help from a person Savvy with your tools to help you. Just a thought if it is possible. When your are testing the update possibly make a video at the same time and post the link with the latest development. Hoping this is not a lot more work to add on you. A helper may be able to do an addendum to the manual instead of changing the entire manual.
 
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