Hi Batters, Breaking from the 'underwhelmed' thread to pursue a specific issue, I have to agree with the original poster that TB!s help is quite shockingly bad.
I've been in IT for about 16 years now and TB!s documentation is unique in my experience. Most software documentation falls into one of three categories: (a) Minimal Just enough to claim the documentation exists, glosses over much of the actual detail, but nevertheless covers all of the major parts of the software. (b) Commendable Makes a serious attempt to cover all topics in detail and usually only fails in a relatively small number of areas. Most issues with this category relate to the documentor's familiarity with the product leading to assumptions of knowledge. (c) Amateur Not a technical writer in sight and often worse than no help at all. The Bat! manages to be a mix of all three! Some topics do not appear to be covered at all - at least not where I expect to see it. Some of the text is excellent and with superb detail, and some is actually embarassing in its inability to convey the meaning. Not everybody can write good documentation, but that is no excuse for providing poor quality. You wouldn't entrust the writing of TB!s code to just anybody would you? The documentation needs to be taken seriously. Personally, I have learnt MS Office and many other software packages without any kind of formal training and mostly by RTFM. I don't believe I would be able to make use of TB! as much as I do without this list and I really hardly even scrape the surface. It's a powerful piece of software, but that power is buried. How many out there would be prepared to may more for the next version of TB! if a comprehensive, structured help system were provided? -- Allister Jenks. TB 2.01.3 ________________________________________________ Current version is 2.02.3 CE | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
