Wrapping an aerial view

[Bruce05]

I am using BS to write a document that is increasing in length. I plan to export the document to Word for formatting. I use aerial view to get an overview of the whole document. It would be useful if the lines of text in aerial view could be wrapped around, so that they fitted on my screen. At present I scroll sideways.

[david]

First of all, I'm sorry about the delay responding. For some reason the notification system didn't work. (Or I accidentally deleted the email.)

Anyway, you're right. The aerial view was introduced to reveal the structure of a model, rather than to give the whole picture.

We have an action in our WIBNI (Wouldn't It Be Nice If) to introduce an option to view entries wrapped or unwrapped. This is high on our list of priorities, but other things are even higher at the moment.

We will be tackling the issue for sure because there are other improvements we'd like to make to aerial view which involve quite a bit of work, so we'll be tackling them all together.

[Bruce05]

I am a slower learner. I have discovered that, with a split screen, I can have an aerial view on one side of my screen, displaying the structure of my document, and, on the other side, the usual view, displaying the wrapped text of my document. And, of course, I can adjust the size of each split screen. Brilliant. Thanks.

[david]

You're welcome.

Seems to me that we need to find ways of bringing this sort of thing to people's attention more readily.

Would a set of 'tips' that appears on startup be the answer, I wonder?

There's so much in BrainStorm that is documented in the help file ... but, by and large, people tend not to go there.

Shift and drag, for example, is the fastest way to make entries subsidiary to another entry. And, if you ctrl/select them in the first place, they end up in the sequence they were selected.

You can also shift/drag them to a heading to make them part of the heading's list.

On the split windows stuff, we have some nice improvements coming, including the ability to create a new window with the current entry as its heading. More on that later...

[david]

Bruce, you sparked me off. Thanks. See this blog post if you're interested:

http://www.brainstormsw.com/weblog/archives/188

[chrisgl]

That's got me thinking. It's possibly the most difficult thing to do (help files, not thinking. Tho'... ;)

Given the prospect of a BS update, I started wondering if Tips/Help could be provided as a BS file. Which lead to the idea of BS having the ability to open at a random location in a file (which should have some sort of flag to allow this action)

Maybe such a file could be posted top the web site with new discoveries added.


Here are some random thoughts I've had. Some blindingly obvious, some, maybe, not. Certainly not exhaustive.

WARNING - contains Generalisations

========

Random Help file thoughts (2nd go after an abrupt reboot by my pc :(

Biggest problem is that until the user knows what the program can do they don't know to try/ask for help. But help files can appear daunting if there are may "read this before you start" type entries.

I think help needs to be produced iteratively since the developer will not be able to see the issues the user will want to get help on. As with many 'FAQ' web pages, the content is what the developer thinks might be useful and not what users FA at all.

The user should be able to turn off parts of interactive help as they get to grips with the system. YOu may be an expert in certain areas and not in others. ALso need to be able to reset the level!

EMAIL LISTS/web forums are very good 'cos users can share experience, reducing the load on the developer. The developer can use this information to improve the Help file OR ask for Forum members to do so.

Provide a section of "I want to..." with explanations of how to :)
This should be included in the Tips



================
Issues (not all easy to fix)
- Often not written with the user in mind
- language too technical

- Searching
- returns too many results
+ However a list is a useful thing to look through and better than asking a user to remember something
- Returned titles are not meaningful
- returns too few results
- keywords are not those the user would use or think of

- Omitted information

- No method to allow the user to incorporate their own comments/findings/bookmarks
- I've never used the Windows Bookmarks... no idea why.

- Users will _always_ want help on a subject not covered properly


Ways to provide help
""""""""""""""""""""
* Startup Tips
- Easy to ignore especially if the tips are not relevant to the user.
? Is there a way to allow the user to choose an area of interest?
- Tips don't (as I recall) link to relevant help file info

* PopUp/mouse-over
- Can get in the way
* should be a memory aid
+ could make suggestions but could suffer the same fate as the 'paper-clip'
+ Links to more detailed information

* Context sensitive
+ Reduces the amount of presented information to what is relevant (hopefully)
- Developer's idea of context may not match the typical user.

* Help file
* in Windows help file format
- can't search with 3rd party engines
* in HTML format
- doesn't appear as quickly as Windows help (Firewall, load web browser)
- presentation varies across programs
- searching often leaves a lot to be desired
- seen as an easy/cheap option by developers I suspect
+ Can take advantage of a browsers Note facility (Opera, Firefox(?) IE(??)
+ Can be searched by a 3rd party engine
- On-line HTML
- NO NO NO NO NO
- assumes all user have constant web access
+ Developer can update and everyone gets the latest version


================

[david]

I'm locking this topic because the conversation is running here and on the blog.

After much deliberation, I decided the blog was the best place to carry on.

Hope that's okay with you.

Here's the link:

http://www.brainstormsw.com/weblog/archives/188