looking forward
Moderators: fgagnon, nikos, Site Mods
I'll turn a new leaf, coin a new linguistic approach known as Loquacious Taciturnity. Popular with gossiping monks, and demure women; or is that gossiping women and demure monks? Tonsured women and tell-tale monks, to be sure.narayan wrote:you of all people would appreciate verbosity!
Concision is anathema to a lusty eve of caravanserai colloquy.
Seriously though, I'm quite fond of terse/clear descriptions, which allow for a hidden verbosity whence hovered over with a mouse, tool-tip manner. Makes for a neater layout, with more information available as needed.
[And who's responsible for the girth of the x2 War and Peace manual? Hmm? Not I said the Duck...
]I agree with completely with your view: The verbosity must be hidden in extended tips. so normal viewers are not dismayed/distracted by it, and yet they get the additional VERBOSE info easily.
In fact, I have designed the UM so that Nikos can place a tiny icon anywhere, to jump to the relevant part of the UM. The main difference between an extended tip and UM is that you can see figures and also cross-references in UM, to completely understand the basics of the topic.
*****
[OT]
I just knew you'd bring the UM up.
It is bigger than many books on coding, design, etc.
And then I dispensed with the 15-odd pages you see in any published book- (Foreplay, and such).
Did you know it has almost 1000 images?
In fact, I have designed the UM so that Nikos can place a tiny icon anywhere, to jump to the relevant part of the UM. The main difference between an extended tip and UM is that you can see figures and also cross-references in UM, to completely understand the basics of the topic.
*****
[OT]
I just knew you'd bring the UM up.
It is bigger than many books on coding, design, etc.
And then I dispensed with the 15-odd pages you see in any published book- (Foreplay, and such).
Did you know it has almost 1000 images?
Now we're gettin' somewhere.narayan wrote:In fact, I have designed the UM so that Nikos can place a tiny icon anywhere, to jump to the relevant part of the UM.
narayan wrote:It is bigger than many books on coding, design, etc.
Hmm. x2 UM == 381 pages; CPL == 217 pages.Kernighan & Ritchie in the preface to the 2nd edition of the C Programming Language wrote:We have tried to retain the brevity of the first edition. C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book.
And what's with the gold-embossed lettering? Very James Bond, without that girl.
Does the tattery texture of the revamped icon indicate weathered experience? I look like that after a snowstorm.@gold crust:
The crust implies "x2's pure gold, but needs a little polishing".
Note that the crust is only on x2; not on the "UM"!
Once Nikos puts this built-in Options dialog (which hopefully will also manage the blacklists from within x2), I will put a "pure gold" icon there.
@Kernighan & Ritchie:
Programmers are known slackers when it comes to writing help.
So authors step in and do full justice to that job.
Ritchie -> 217 pages, but Deitel -> 1008 pages!!
It's the same old story here, between Nikos and me!
@links to manual:
In near future, UM will have links to demo movies on various topics.
Visually oriented people can check out the videos.
I am waiting for Nikos to rearrange his videos for that.
So, in future, the user will go from x2 to manual, and from there off to see a movie!
And it could be a fully paid return trip:
The movie can embed links back to the manual.
Talk about spoiling the users!
The crust implies "x2's pure gold, but needs a little polishing".
Note that the crust is only on x2; not on the "UM"!
Once Nikos puts this built-in Options dialog (which hopefully will also manage the blacklists from within x2), I will put a "pure gold" icon there.
@Kernighan & Ritchie:
Programmers are known slackers when it comes to writing help.
So authors step in and do full justice to that job.
Ritchie -> 217 pages, but Deitel -> 1008 pages!!
It's the same old story here, between Nikos and me!
@links to manual:
In near future, UM will have links to demo movies on various topics.
Visually oriented people can check out the videos.
I am waiting for Nikos to rearrange his videos for that.
So, in future, the user will go from x2 to manual, and from there off to see a movie!
And it could be a fully paid return trip:
The movie can embed links back to the manual.
Talk about spoiling the users!
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FrizzleFry
- Platinum Member
- Posts: 1250
- Joined: 2005 Oct 16, 19:09
The new manual seems to work fine in Foxit Reader... links from table of contents work... bookmarks work... are there any other features I should test?
It is nice to have the links from toc back... although checking the previous manual I see there were already back. Not sure when they got fixed but it is nice to have them back. I would be very nice if x2 would send you to the appropriate page in the manual.
It is nice to have the links from toc back... although checking the previous manual I see there were already back. Not sure when they got fixed but it is nice to have them back. I would be very nice if x2 would send you to the appropriate page in the manual.
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Mr.Pleasant
- Silver Member
- Posts: 281
- Joined: 2006 Dec 29, 12:56
- Location: Utrecht, NL
I don't see that happen soon. PDF comes in different versions, and is an open standard. Each version is described thoroughly in accessible documentation. Some of the older versions have become ISO standards for archiving and printing, so compatibility IS an issue with pdf's already.Do I sense a potential nightmare of compatibility with 3rd party PDF readers coming on?
Newer versions of pdf's might be accessible with older versions of reader software, depending on the features used in the pdf.
Now I'm faithful user of OO, and sympathetic with Foxit for keeping small things small. But the good thing with Adobe software is that it is much more transparent about versions. At least with Adobe pdf creating software, you can choose what version to write to, and thus choose your degree of compatibility. This is not the case with OO - which only creates only pdf's according to version 1.4 (fair choice though, given that the user isn't offered a choice himself). Also, it's well documented which version of the Adobe Reader reads which pdf version, something I haven't found out with Foxit Readers.
Granted, Adobe pdf software is ridiculously bloated and in many cases priced likewise. But, up to now, it offers at least some advantages over the '3rd party' pdf software, compatilibily management being one of them (says the unwise Mr. Pleasant
)
Given that the user manual is in pdf version 1.4, which was created in 2001, I guess Foxit Reader, being much younger, should be able to cope with any feature possible in this format.are there any other features I should test?
I wasn't so much considering PDF version compatibility... any of the major players these days can deal with whatever is thrown at them - be they Foxit, XChange, or hell, even the diminutive Sumatra is functional. (Personally I use XChange, as it's - as far as I know - the only one with a native x64 install and explicit multicore rendering support; I find such meaningless [read ~ inconsequential] tech nonsense comforting.)
My curiosity as regards viewer compatibility was more at narayan's ideas of x2 linking into a PDF (at a particular heading), which then links outward (to the films), and back again (as, in his words) "The movie can embed links back to the manual", in some mystically seamless manner.
Linking/Terminating from an external browser is simple enough, but why would a movie have embedded links?
Just one of those curious dust particles that tickled my brain without worrying any major inquiry...
(For the record, I gave up on Foxit as the quality of it's image rendering in recent builds became questionable [to my feeble eyes], compared to the competition, and I began to wonder what else they were fudging.) Adobe themselves don't just suffer from bloat, they suffer from being Adobe - in the same way as my own sin of existence [human condition] keeps me awake at night when I'm bored.
My curiosity as regards viewer compatibility was more at narayan's ideas of x2 linking into a PDF (at a particular heading), which then links outward (to the films), and back again (as, in his words) "The movie can embed links back to the manual", in some mystically seamless manner.
Linking/Terminating from an external browser is simple enough, but why would a movie have embedded links?
Just one of those curious dust particles that tickled my brain without worrying any major inquiry...
(For the record, I gave up on Foxit as the quality of it's image rendering in recent builds became questionable [to my feeble eyes], compared to the competition, and I began to wonder what else they were fudging.) Adobe themselves don't just suffer from bloat, they suffer from being Adobe - in the same way as my own sin of existence [human condition] keeps me awake at night when I'm bored.
The movie -> UM links was the ultimate possibility: It would require that you download all movies to the same x2 folder.
But think about it: It would be a totally seamless experience.
While a movie makes everything clear through demonstrating, it leaves out a lot of details. This is provided by the UM. So the UM and the movies complement each other.
But think about it: It would be a totally seamless experience.
While a movie makes everything clear through demonstrating, it leaves out a lot of details. This is provided by the UM. So the UM and the movies complement each other.
Doomed to be misunderstood... 
As President Bartlet said,
As President Bartlet said,
In my house, anyone who used one word when they could have used ten just isn't trying hard.