Neeum Zawan wrote:
> On 11/19/09 10:33, Darren New wrote:
>>> Sometimes you get a help page for the whole dialog box, containing
>>> such gems as "Use SCSI encapsulation - Turn this on if you want to use
>>> SCSI command encapsulation". Well, gee, now it all makes sense!
>>
>> That means one of two things:
>> 1) If you don't know what SCSI encapsulation is, don't touch this.
> 
>     Yes, but why bother putting it in the help file, if you're not going 
> to provide help for it?

Because some corporate person made the rule that every option has to have a 
help file entry?

The other mechanism is to say "it's in the registry, but we don't support 
it", but then you get people complaining about it.  "Turns on SCSI 
encapsulation" is a perfectly good description if you know what it means. If 
you don't know what it means, a tool tip is probably not the right place to 
learn it.

It's like trying to explain anything technical in enough detail that an 
uneducated user will understand. How do you explain "clear authenticated 
sessions" in the firefox "clear private data" dialog without explaining how 
SSL works and why you'd have to carry around session authentications between 
sessions?  To someone who isn't sure what the difference between the 
internet and email is?

How do you explain what an IRQ conflict is or a DMA range to someone who is 
still a bit confused by the difference between the monitor and the computer?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Is God willing to prevent naglams, but unable?
     Then he is not omnipotent.
   Is he able, but not willing, to prevent naglams?
     Then he is malevolent.

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