On Wed, 2006-11-22 at 17:33 +0100, Uwe Fischer wrote: > Hi Regina, > > Regina Henschel wrote: > > I have uploaded a document now. > > > > I have copied the text from a browser into a writer document and have > > written my additions and changes in green. Is such a form useful for > > you? Or should I work on a xhp-file directly? That would be a little bit > > difficult, because I can read such a file, but know nothing about the > > special syntax. > > thank you for your first file. > Some remarks: > I would prefer the main0000 page of chart to be a kind of table of index > only, the same way the other modules' main000 files work. > > We might dicuss if we really need example data to build example charts > in the Help. In my view, this is not necessary. Users who open Help > don't normally want to learn something about the software, but they want > a precise and immediate answer with 1-2-3 steps to solve their problem. > We can add a link in the Help to a (printed)|(pdf) guide with examples > and pictures on the Web instead. > The Help needs to be as short as possible, while a guide on the Web can > even offer some story plots and elaborated office tasks with solutions > to keep the reader motivated ;-) > > Don't mind about xhp file format; I can copy your files to that format > and take care for the CVS commits. You can use some high-level info > wherever you want a hyperlink to another file - if I can identify the > target I'll insert the correct hyperlink then. > > > > > > >> In cws chart2mst3 you can already find the Chart Wizard help in folder > >> schart/01, among other changes. > > there is a new choose_chart_type.xhp file now with some info about the > chart types. I started writing this file this morning, and then > discovered it gets too large. So next I will break this file up into > different files, one for each chart type. > > Then it would be a good idea to have only one of us working on the new > chart. So I suggest I will step back next week and let you proceed with > writing chart help files. Then, may be in January, we can find out how > to organize the new files into a nice Help structure. What do you think? > > > > > I found them. I added the main-transform.xsl to make them read better. > > Is there another way? Can they be integrated into an existing help? > > > > in theory, any xhp file can be added to the correct *.jar file in an > installed help folder. Add hyperlinks from existing files to browse to > that file. It will not be included in index and full text search, > however. You must build the module helpcontent2 of the CWS and then > extract the resulting zip files into an installed help folder to have an > all new Help. > Now that we started to change the Help in the chart CWS chart2mst3, the > next built installation file sets will contain the new Help as well as > any new changes to chart. > > > > It seems, that the files contain only extended help texts. They are far > > away from that, what I would expect from a guide. > > The new chart currently has the target OOo 3. For that version, the Help > is intended to get a redesign, see issue 52158. Chart Help follows the > new structure: > - all controls get "hidden" extended help texts. > - pressing F1 or the Help button in a dialog opens Help according to the > Help ID of the focused control. But the user should read a guide instead > of the old reference pages. So we include the guide instructions in the > former Help reference files as visible text, with the extended help > texts hidden text. An example: User sees Chart Wizard page 1. The > "subtype" control (with the three or four icons to choose from) has the > focus. User presses F1 or clicks Help button. Help Id of the "subtype" > control triggers the following Help file: wiz_chart_type.xhp, because > the Help ID is there. Text on that page contains a Guide on how to use > this wizard page, plus all necessary links. User points to the "subtype" > control and presses Shift+F1: the extended help appears and shows the > text that follows the Help ID on the same help page, between AHID tags. > > > Therefore I first > > added a description of the chart types to the "main0000"-file. One great > > problem with charts I knew from newsgroups is, that people use the wrong > > chart type, especially "line" instead of "XY-chart". > > > > The XY-charts are very different from the others and therefore I think, > > that they need a special guide. Do you agree? If yes, which form of > > guide would you prefer (see A,B,C in my first post)? > > > > Yes, for sure XY charts need special handling in the Help. As do stock > charts. > Again, I think long guides with examples and illustrations are better > suited as pdf files. Keep explanation and info on how and why using > chart types as short as possible for the Help. But this is only my > opinion and we can discuss this. >
I agree too. This is why the doc project has a user guide in progress and also why we track the on-line help. The new charting module does offer some challenges but I believe that by working together we can accomplish both goals. -- PLEASE KEEP MESSAGES ON THE LIST. OpenOffice.org Documentation Co-Lead http://documentation.openoffice.org/
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