Invisible schrieb:

> Ooo, I *love* this! Loads of Windows programs have a big help button, 
> but when you click it you get absolutely nothing of use.

Yes - and it seems to me it's getting more and more common.

> Sometimes you get an error message. (Oh THAT helps me!)

Another variant that gets me into ranting mode is to require internet 
access to get help, without an option to install the smash locally. 
Which especially sucks if it's a collection of some hundreds of HTML 
pages (did I mention that I prefer help formats where you can easily do 
a full-text search?)

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>> Sometimes you get an error message. (Oh THAT helps me!)
> 
> Another variant that gets me into ranting mode is to require internet 
> access to get help, without an option to install the smash locally. 
> Which especially sucks if it's a collection of some hundreds of HTML 
> pages (did I mention that I prefer help formats where you can easily do 
> a full-text search?)

M$ Office seems to favour a "help system" which actually just does a 
text search of the online forums. (WTF?)

Remember the days when people used to write *real* documentation?

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Invisible 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.
2) Nobody told the tech writer what it actually does.

-- 
   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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clipka wrote:
> Which especially sucks if it's a collection of some hundreds of HTML 
> pages 

Or DirectFB, where the web site tends to go down for a week at a time.

-- 
   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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Invisible wrote:
> Remember the days when people used to write *real* documentation?

Office has real documentation. They just include the online help as an 
update. If you have no internet, you still get help.

-- 
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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>> 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.
> 2) Nobody told the tech writer what it actually does.

Indeed.

I expect it's frequently #2 - although these are not mutually-exclusive 
alternatives. ;-)

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clipka wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez schrieb:
> 
>>> Heck, how many config options do they have?!? This is frightening :-)
>> 
>> Be glad you didn't try KDE 4.0. There were *so* many options *missing*
>> that KDE3.5 did have...
> 
> Heh, I /am/ talking about KDE4...

I don't think you're talking about *4.0*. It really is unusable :P

I use 4.3, and there are already like 3 things I want that people have 
assured me were added in 4.4 (which isn't released yet).

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clipka wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez schrieb:
> 
>> Get Kate. It uses the same underlying file editing component as KWrite,
>> but supports a lot more features, like opening multiple documents at
>> once.
> 
> What - KWrite doesn't? Didn't notice yet, but in that case... yes, I
> probably want Kate...

KWrite supports multiple documents. By opening multiple windows. Maybe in 
the same process, unlike Notepad, but visually it's the same.

>> And an embedded terminal (useful for typing the ./povray command ;) ).
> 
> Heh, I just noticed the integrated terminal in the Dolphin file manager.
> Which cd's automatically. Now /that/ is a smart idea! :-)

Heck, even Konversation (chat client) has an integrated terminal. All thanks 
to the component architecture of KDE. KWrite is a simple app integrating 
KatePart and Konsole is a simple-ish app integrating KonsolePart. Kate uses 
both KParts. And a lot more code, of course.

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On Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:39:33 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> But the critical question is... Can you configure them all from the GUI?
> Or do you have to edit some 25-mile text file?

No more often than Windows settings need to be tweaked in the registry 
these days, in my experience.

Jim

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Nicolas Alvarez schrieb:

>> Heh, I /am/ talking about KDE4...
> 
> I don't think you're talking about *4.0*. It really is unusable :P

Ah, ok - yes, you're right, I'm using 4.3 here.

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