Well, I lied! I have one comment: I did press the feedback link, even though the question looks almost a joke! :)
BTW: The Void stamp and yellow highlighting is just me playing around with SnagIt! :)
EDIT: It appears it gets even better:
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Finally someone saying the goods and the bads about Delphi 2007...
8 comments:
So many help topics, so little actual help.
Would only be half as bad if "Improved Help" was not one of the key selling points of Delphi 2007 and one of the reasons given to justify upgrading! :)
And these screenshots are from the updated Delphi 2007! :)
But at least it admits they are part of Strings, where as D2006 it said something like "No context found"
Is it just me or could it be that TStrings is not in the index of Delphi 5 at all? (It can be found in the Delphi 5 help if you type TStrings in the editor and press F1). Maybe that explains why it could not be automatically included in the Delphi 2007 help.
Well, to be fair I have to admit that I prefer the new help over the old Delphi 5 help. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. It took me a little while to get used to it, but then I found myself looking into D2007 help when I had a problem in Delphi 5. If you type TForm in the index you'll get very complete help for TForm. Now try doing this in Delphi 5. TForm class with a description of its members is not even in the index. You have to navigate to TForm and press F1. Then you'll get what you want, but you have to go back to the code you were working on.
You should compare the Delphi 2006/2007 help with Delphi 7's help file and not with the much older Delphi 5.
Absolutely true, Andreas: unfortunately, Delphi 7 is still a reference and something to look upon, even after so many years and versions.
Not that I would go back "coding" on it! I miss too many of the new features. If only they didn't come at the expense of a less than good help...
I've said it before but I still wonder what is on CG's marketing people's heads? I mean, do they mean by "Improved Help" that it "looks nicer"? :)
Fernando --
You can blame me for this.
In the past, users would hit the F1 key and get /nothing/. Nothing would happen.
I told the doc team to create a page for everything, even if the page was blank. My assumption is that people would rather see a page with basically nothing in it, rather than get, well, literally nothing.
If you'd rather go back to literally nothing, then we can do that. Let me know what you think.
Nick Hodges
Delphi Product Manager
Codegear
http://blogs.codegear.com/nickhodges
Nick: no need to blame anyone! :)
I just want to "kick your buts" a bit every now and then so you don't forget about fixing the help!
Also, were it not for the "Improved Help" argument used to try and get more customers, I'd not be "bitching" so much! :)
Just keep fleshing the help pages and perhaps add something like "No content yet, will be fixed soon" or at least a different message at the bottom, because the question "What do you think about this topic?" when there's nothing in is almost like "joking" with the reader! (I know that's not the idea, but still).
Just keep improving it and even releasing an updated help file (preferably *not* as an "update" as the updating way of InstallAware is just stupid: uninstall/re-install is nuts).
Probably, as in the past, some updated zipped files available for download plus a simple batch file to re-register the help/indexes and have that released every other week or so, so we can keep seeing the changes. Maybe even add a readme saying what's changed since last version help files...
Just some thoughts as currently, help is still one of the biggest issues with Delphi 2007...
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