>
> >How do you more experienced programmers out there manage this
> >plethora of information? Who has the best system? Help file pages
> >can't be searched for specific words once you've found the right

page

> >(a task in itself, given the somewhat cryptic headings in some
> >indexes), annotations are prone to getting lost when re-building

your

> >system, a group of pdf's can't all be searched at once (can
> >they?)...etc. etc.
>
> Well, if I may beat a drum...
>
> The plan was to do this (all the stuff developers need to do

InterBase) in

> one big book - the InterBase Developer's Handbook. It's been a

dream of

> mine for nearly 5 years now.

The book's a great idea but I think the problem is much more
immediate.

> . . It will take 9 months' full-time writing to do it. . .

> books and the often confusing nature of the documentation, look no

further

> than the support lists. IB is quite peculiar, insofar as it has a

long

> tradition of its technical experts staying close to the community,

through

> many years, via support lists like this one, the Mers list in its

happier

> days and, for the past year, the IBDI groups on
> onelist->egroups->yahoogroups. We help one another like no other

developer

> community I've ever engaged with, in 20 years as a developer.
>

The support list is exceptional - but it still can take one or two
days to get a simple issue resolved because of time zones etc.

>. .
> >With regard to the IBO help files and their many brief/cryptic/non-
> >existent explanations, . .
> That is already happening. The FAQ on the IBO website is one part

of it

> (only about a third of the current FAQ entries are there yet) and

Jason,

> Geoff Worboys, others and I are steadily building up a library of

tech info

> sheets to address broader topics than can be handled in an FAQ item.

FAQs are usefull but still have to be searched

> .. . As to the formats of current docs - Helpfile is Jason's
> favourite at present because it's the most portable and updatable

way to

> provide documentation for a Window-based toolset. If the component

help

> sometimes seems obscure, just remember that Jason maintains it

himself,

> inside the source code. It gets generated into a new version each

time

> there is a major release (A, B, C, etc.) so it's not always going

to be

> "fresh" for every sub-release.
>

This is another reason why, for me, a book doesn't address the IBO
documentation problem.

> I consider that you - free and paying users alike - get very good

value for

> money. Sometimes I'm astounded by the cheek of a few people who

join this

> list and *criticise* Jason for "poor documentation". IBO fits in

somewhere

> between Shareware and Freeware. There are a few thousand IBO users

around

> the world and a few hundred who have paid. I've used some

expensive

> commercial third-party products with awful, useless documentation

(if any

> of you ever used the Rational Rose documentation, or Microsoft

Project, or

> the SQLServer helpfiles, you'll know what I mean!) Jason's

helpfile is

> 1000% better. You all get free support. You all get the helpfile

for

> free. In the past 9 months, Jason has pushed all his IBO revenue

back into

> the product documentation.
>

I'm not criticising Jason, and I've paid what has been asked. The
problem is once you commit to IBO in a commercial environment you
have invested a huge amount of your time and therefore money in it.
Far in excess of the sums that you pay to Jason.

In fact I WOULD PAY AS MUCH AGAIN to have someone create and maintain
a proper help file.

It is very easy with IBO to loose half a day here and there on
something that should be readily accessible in a help file via
keywords.

> It's on the Agenda to review the component help over the

forthcoming

> months. . .<

Great! I would like to see the help source removed from Jasons
system to a 'proper' help authoring tool and for it to be jointly
maintained by Jason and others (the prime resposibility being on
another to release Jason for maximum development - which I'm sure he
enjoys most :-)).

I would like all the unfinished sections filled in, keyword search
vastly improved, examples included, FAQ content included and
reference to specific demos where appropriate - all at least to the
standard of the Delphi help files.

I would like the cost of IBO to go up or the help file be charged for
to pay for the work. When considering what it is worth I will be
considering the time and lost revenue I can save in finding answers
quickly - a lot!

Just my 2p worth - I'm probably in a world of my own ;-)

Regards
Paul