Conference vaxuum::online_bookbuilding

137.0. "DECUS Observations" by CURIE::HARTSHORN () Mon May 22 1989 13:50

While doing the BOOKREADER demo in the Publications' booth at DECUS I
made the following observations:

1.  Everyone wanted online documentation to be displayed on VTs.

2.  Customers want to be able to put their documentation online
but not necessarily on CDROM.  The customers I spoke to 
realized that the BOOKREADER file format took up a lot of space, but
since most of their documentation consisted of one or two books under 
100 pages, they did not see disk space as being a problem.

3.  Those customers that wanted to put their documentation 
on CDROM where mainly government contractors.  Such customers provide
mountains of documentation to the government and are looking for an 
alternative to paper.

4.  The fact that their documentation source files had to be converted
to DOCUMENT did not concern most customers.
 
5. Customers were disappointed with the current inability to put their 
own documentation online.

6.  Everyone was disappointed with the lack of navigational tools for the
BOOKREADER (string search, bookmarks, cross references between books 
etc.).

7.  I did not talk to anyone who was interested in having their 
documentation put on CDROM with or by DIGITAL.

8.  The overall response to the BOOKREADER was VERY POSITIVE!!!!!  
Aside from the usual DEC-BASHERS everyone who saw the demo wanted
to be able to get DIGITAL documentation online and most wanted to 
generate their own online documentation.