Right click > Show in user manual

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TCP786

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Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 11, 2021 11:20 am

For anything you can right click on, there should be an option in the drop-down menu called "Show in user manual." This should open the documentation to the specific page on which this tool/feature is described.
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waltervolpatto

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 11, 2021 4:54 pm

it's a good thought, but it will be very time consuming to implement and I'm not sure it is worth it.

consider that the manual is always months late: I prefer the engineers work on new bits of software than rewrite the existing one to fit the manual....

I vote no.....
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Nathan Morgan

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 11, 2021 5:45 pm

waltervolpatto wrote:I vote no.....


With Walter on this one. At some point people have to learn how to ride on their own.
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Andy Mees

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 11, 2021 5:53 pm

It's a seemingly nice idea, in theory Cody, but in practice maybe not so practicable.
Eg I can right click in an empty Media Pool area and get a single context menu that offers 'New Bin' ... surely even a new user doesn't want or need a user manual hyperlink for that? Conversely, I can right click on a clip in the Media Pool or Timeline and get a complex context menu with a dozen or more completely different action choices for that item ... which single user manual page does that open? We surely don't want separate user manual hyperlink options in that menu for every possible menu option, doubling the size and complexity and muddying the actual operability, right?

Maybe an alternative, more workable solution could be one where the user enters an explicit modal "Help Search" mode of some sort (perhaps via a Help menu option) ... the cursor turns into a Question Mark symbol or some such, and then clicking in the UI on any responsive element opens the User Manual at an expressly appropriate page or chapter, for more info... but as others have pointed out thats dev time that could maybe be spent better.
Let's have a return to the glory days, when press releases for new versions included text like "...with over 300 new features and improvements that professional editors and colorists have asked for."
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TCP786

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 1:34 am

Ok, fair. I do agree that other things are more important, it just wasn't initially imagining it being something that would be an exceptional amount of work. I've used one program in the past that had this feature and it was incredibly helpful, but yeah, especially since it's not even a fix for anything I guess you all are right about it being unnecessary relative to pretty much anything else.
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Marc Wielage

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 1:48 am

I've asked for an INDEX to the manual several times, but no luck. At least with that, you could look up stuff in context, like looking up "Green Screen" and then seeing if "composite" is under that. Otherwise, if you do a PDF search on those words, there's about 29 hits just on "Green Screen." PDF searches can be frustrating. An Index would solve that problem.

The challenge is that the manual gets updated all the time, so that would put the Index in a state of flux, so there is that.
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TCP786

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 1:52 am

Marc Wielage wrote:The challenge is that the manual gets updated all the time, so that would put the Index in a state of flux, so there is that.
If the manual had an index, it would be part of the job of updating any part of the manual to update the index as well... Also that wouldn't even be that much work, since it could just use links like the table of contents already does. I think that would mean it would update automatically rather than have to be manually re-written when page numbers change.
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TCP786

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 3:32 pm

I know this thread is dead at this point, but I can't not mention this, since we're in the feature requests sub-forum already:
waltervolpatto wrote:I prefer the engineers work on new bits of software than rewrite the existing one to fit the manual...
Regardless of the user manual, the last thing I'd prefer is for the engineers to work on new features before fixing the countless issues the existing ones have. There are a lot of existing tools/features that are genuinely unusable as they are right now, and if the focus is always on adding new features, then the new ones they add in the future will also continue to be unstable if they move on to even newer ones once those are added. I personally think it's absolutely absurd to even consider adding more features when something as basic as the polygon node routinely breaks in completely normal use cases, but maybe that's just me.
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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 3:56 pm

TCP786 wrote:I know this thread is dead at this point, but I can't not mention this, since we're in the feature requests sub-forum already:
waltervolpatto wrote:I prefer the engineers work on new bits of software than rewrite the existing one to fit the manual...
Regardless of the user manual, the last thing I'd prefer is for the engineers to work on new features before fixing the countless issues the existing ones have. There are a lot of existing tools/features that are genuinely unusable as they are right now, and if the focus is always on adding new features, then the new ones they add in the future will also continue to be unstable if they move on to even newer ones once those are added. I personally think it's absolutely absurd to even consider adding more features when something as basic as the polygon node routinely breaks in completely normal use cases, but maybe that's just me.



I'm with you, not necessarily focusing on "new" bits but fixing/improve whats there.
The idea is the there are only so many engineer ours at disposal and, to me, adding something like manual in context help is a lot of work for little gain....
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TCP786

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 4:02 pm

Yeah, I'm with you 100%. I think I was a bit naive with my assumption of the workload involved in that kind of integration of the user manual. "It's like adding online multiplayer to No Man's Sky - just a few lines of code, right?" But yes, now that I think about it I would also much rather them work on just about anything else. Haha.
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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 12, 2021 4:08 pm

TCP786 wrote:Yeah, I'm with you 100%. I think I was a bit naive with my assumption of the workload involved in that kind of integration of the user manual. "It's like adding online multiplayer to No Man's Sky - just a few lines of code, right?" But yes, now that I think about it I would also much rather them work on just about anything else. Haha.


yep just few lines of code!!!

(I'm still playing Mass Effect3 multiplayer 9 years after coming out...)
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eikonoklastes

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 18, 2021 2:59 pm

I mean, if they just transfer their manual to HTML and put it online — you know like every other (trying not to swear here) DCC manual in existence — Google will do the indexing for them.
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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 18, 2021 4:49 pm

waltervolpatto wrote:consider that the manual is always months late

There is something wrong in the company processes if this happens. Somehow others can manage releasing docs with software releases, because users might actually want to know how some new functionality is supposed to be used. Epecially with betas, want users to help, give them at least something that explains what the correct behavior is supposed to be. Can't know if something is broken without description of what something is supposed to do.

And my +1 for online html help.
I do stuff.
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waltervolpatto

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostMon Oct 18, 2021 11:15 pm

And my +1 for online html help.


hirk!!

not when all the machines in the building are isolated form online....
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Hendrik Proosa

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 19, 2021 10:10 am

waltervolpatto wrote:
And my +1 for online html help.


hirk!!

not when all the machines in the building are isolated form online....

This is easily solved by packaging the html help in offline form with released soft too. Like Nuke does for example. It even has option to specify custom help server address.
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waltervolpatto

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 19, 2021 6:13 pm

Hendrik Proosa wrote:
waltervolpatto wrote:
And my +1 for online html help.


hirk!!

not when all the machines in the building are isolated form online....

This is easily solved by packaging the html help in offline form with released soft too. Like Nuke does for example. It even has option to specify custom help server address.



You have no idea how “isolated” machines really are….
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Hendrik Proosa

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Re: Right click > Show in user manual

PostTue Oct 19, 2021 7:40 pm

waltervolpatto wrote:You have no idea how “isolated” machines really are….

Probably not if you can't even view a html doc locally. You need the default browser of OS, nothing more, it doesn't need any more openness than pdf does. Actually one could even view html docs from a Qt widget inside Resolve, with no external browser.
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