In the debate about the number of pictures (mainly screenshots) in the
user guides, Gary offered some examples of screenshots that he thought
were unnecessary. One category was pix of how to open files.
I agree that most of those can probably go, partly because that is too
basic a thing for us to be teaching people, but also because many
(most?) of them are operating-system-specific and the appearance of
various operating systems keeps changing. I'm not familiar with
Windows Vista, but I believe there are some significant differences in
appearance between that and WinXP, and indeed WinXP classic is quite
different from the default WinXP desktop and start menu view (whatever
it's called). So, for example, the screenshot we have of using the
start menu from WinXP shows the classic view and thus may not be of
much help to someone using the default view if they need pictorial
help in following the instructions on using the system menu.
This isn't a matter of "too many pictures" but rather a matter of
choosing pictures that add value for those who want or need pictures.
A picture that doesn't resemble what the user sees may be more likely
to confuse than help. Clearly on o/s-specifc topics we can't provide
for everyone, so I'm now proposing to take those pix out, leaving only
the text. I'm sure there are other places in the books that would
benefit from some judicious pruning of pictures, always with the
criterion of value for those users who benefit from pictures.
This is all quite apart from which o/s we choose to capture the OOo
screens from. OOo looks reasonably similar on all o/s, with some minor
platform-specfic window decorations and some variation in how wide the
dialog is (I've noticed that some dialogs are noticeably wider in
Linux than in Windows).
BTW, as a good example from our books of the appropriate use of many
screenshots, I recommend "Getting Started with Base". Dan Lewis has
included many tightly cropped screenshots to illustrate his text. I've
identified a few pix that I would omit as not needed, but they are
definitely the exceptions.
--Jean
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