| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 1268.1 | Hints...! | MEHR::MEHR | | Fri Jul 19 1991 16:58 | 31 |
|
I agree! particularly On-line-help! difficult to use, and user
unfriendly! I hope this is improved in the next version...(?)
However, for documentation your best bet would be to start
with MASTER INDEX. There you can look under SHOW (it might not
tell you specifically where to find 'SHOW NODE4 PACKET RATE...'but)
it will tell you which document and what page to look under,
to find SHOW NODE4 or SHOW STATISTICS.
As for ON-LINE-HELP, I don't know what would be the best bet!
I think users need another HELP to use HELP :-)
The key is to decide which part of command you are looking to
get info for! ie: FUNCTION or ENTITY. You can either do:
HELP FUNCTION SHOW. (but "function"generally doesn't have much info!)
or you can do
HELP ENTITY Phase_IV_DECnet NODE4 or
HELP ENTITY Phase_IV_DECnet NODE4 STATISTICS or
HELP ENTITY Phase_IV_DECnet NODE4 DIRECTIVES SHOW.
Good luck.
Mahnaz
(A wish list to engineering/documentation folks:
It would be nice to just be able to say:
HELP NODE4 or HELP NODE4 DIRECTIVES.
Also more EXAMPLES would be greatly appreciated, for quick
SYNTAX checking. Regards)
|
| 1268.2 | what about a seperate command manual | HSOMAI::LIN | | Fri Jul 19 1991 18:53 | 2 |
| I like to suggest that we have a seperate command manual from window
interface. Right now they are all mixed togther. It's hard to follow.
|
| 1268.3 | NCL implementer's comments | NAC::ENGLAND | | Mon Jul 22 1991 18:41 | 17 |
| You might want to have a top-level topic such as "READ-ME-FIRST"
which would tell people how to use the online help.
Another suggestion (as if you needed more work to do!).
Context-sensitive help might address some of the problem. For example,
the parser knows at what point the parse failed, perhaps it could
have a "learn" mode in which it would just inject the user directly
into the appropriate part of online help.
Lastly, I don't know why we have to have 3 separate documentation
groups (at least) documenting the same entities three times. Why
not have a single help library (I won't use the word registry,
because I break out in a cold sweat :->) that describes each entity,
and just include these entity-specific libraries in both the
MCC online help and the NCL online helps! This would make it a lot
easier to produce a new entity and get it supported.
|
| 1268.4 | I don't think it's such a hot idea | TNPUBS::JONG | Steve | Tue Jul 23 1991 00:08 | 14 |
| So many trees, so little time... Seriously, if the on-line help were
more friendly (by which I mean if it followed the VMS precedent more
closely), you'd be finding the answers to your questions there, and I
daresay you wouldn't be forming the opinion that you need a command
reference manual.
(God, what a thought! We already have over 1,000 pages of user
information. I know that the VAXdebug documentation took nine times as
many pages to describe it's command-line interface as its DECwindows
interface. I also know how many thousands of pages the NCL
documentation takes up -- command-line reference all, for a product far
simpler than DECmcc. Let's add a command reference to the mix! It'll
be big, it'll be bad, it'll be perpetually out of date... It'll be the
user's SRM! 8^)
|
| 1268.5 | i hear you | TOOK::CALLANDER | Jill Callander DTN 226-5316 | Wed Jul 24 1991 18:35 | 15 |
| Ben, if possible I will see what I can do about adding in some info
like a read me first topic. At least that much shouldn't be too
difficult since it was in the v1.1 toolkit doc set (explaining to
the developers where they should put their help).
As to changing the hierarchy, well that is actually architected in the
SRM and will take a bit more work (and I agree I think it is HORRENDOUS,
and fought it the entire way).
If any one has played with help and wants to write up a few paragraphs on
how they use it, it would be a great starting point for me, and a good
sanity check that I have what your looking for.
Oh BTW the for and to clause on the command are documentation under
the presentation fcl topic on qualifiers......complex enough for you?!
|
| 1268.6 | | MARVIN::COBB | Graham R. Cobb (Wide Area Comms.), REO2-G/H9, 830-3917 | Tue Jul 30 1991 11:44 | 16 |
| Re: .3
> Lastly, I don't know why we have to have 3 separate documentation
> groups (at least) documenting the same entities three times. Why
> not have a single help library (I won't use the word registry,
> because I break out in a cold sweat :->) that describes each entity,
> and just include these entity-specific libraries in both the
> MCC online help and the NCL online helps! This would make it a lot
> easier to produce a new entity and get it supported.
There is at least one group here in Reading who have actually been persuing
getting DSSR to register HELP along with the other things for over a year
now. If anyone is interested in following this up I could probably dig out
a name or talk to Bob Lynch.
Graham
|