Some suggestions for Help & Manual 5.5.1

[Xtructur]

 
Hello,

Capitalized letter commands

Unfortunately, like many other software applications, Help & Manual also abuses the number of every‑first‑capitalized‑letter commands and names: Project Explorer, Page Editor, XML Source, Topic Options, Insert Above, Toolbar is Visible, Check for Update... and not, many of them not even are proper nouns. Perhaps they are titles of publications or names of official agencies and I am not aware of it.

J. Strauss (2008). The blue book of grammar and punctuation, 10th edition.

Main editor window

Duplicating the name of the title Page editor reduces the working area. The bottom check box (Topic has a separate header) also diminishes the space available. Something similar happens with the XML source and Topic options tabs:

Help_and_Manual_02.png

Suggestion:

Help_and_Manual_03.png

Anchors (jump targets)

When an anchor is inserted (Ctrl+H), it is automatically placed at the beginning of the paragraph. Why not at the end? Anchor icons are not visible in a PDF document created by Help & Manual, but they leave some undesired space in its place.

Links to anchors

The Insert hyperlink dialog (Ctrl+L) has a narrow anchor combo, next to the Target box. When the name of the anchor is long, it can not be seen completely, even if we enlarge the dialog box:

Help_and_Manual_04-06.zip

[Help_and_Manual_04.png]
[Help_and_Manual_05.png]

Suggestion:
[Help_and_Manual_06.png]

Strong grid lines

Unchecking the option Show strong table grid lines in edit mode (View › Program options › Editor) shows changes just during the current working session.

Bookmarks

A previous click by session on the Manage bookmarks button (Project › Bookmark) is needed to perform a keyboard shortcut to that command (View › Program options › Shortcuts). Nevertheless, there is not any problem with that command shortcut in a true clean install of Help & Manual.

Minor tweaks for factory shortcuts

Change focus: replace -> by › (single right-pointing angle quotation mark, Alt+0155) in order to obtain Change focus (TOC › keywords › header › text › TOC). The original Help & Manual shortcut for this command (Ctrl+Tab) is not consistent with its equivalent in popular software applications (F6). The same applies to Back to previous entry (Alt+6 against Alt+Left) and Forward to next entry (Alt+7 against Alt+Right).

The following set involves a smaller movement of fingers:
Change focus (Alt+<), Back to previous entry (Alt+A) and Forward to next entry (Alt+Z). Note: for best results, uncheck Back to previous entry on the Quick access toolbar.

Insert /remove page break (for print manual): add a space after the slash. Insert hypen: replace hypen by hyphen. Insert soft hyphen: Ctrl+-. Insert non-breaking hyphen: Ctrl+Shift+-. Insert non-breaking space: Ctrl+Shift+Space. What about keyboard shortcuts for en and em dashes?

Spell check selected text: F7.

Thanks for your kind attention.
Best regards,

Xtru

 

[John Waller]

Capitalized letter commands

Unfortunately, like many other software applications, Help & Manual also abuses the number of every‑first‑capitalized‑letter commands and names: Project Explorer, Page Editor, XML Source, Topic Options, Insert Above, Toolbar is Visible, Check for Update... and not, many of them not even are proper nouns. Perhaps they are titles of publications or names of official agencies and I am not aware of it.

I believe Title style menu commands (Project Explorer, Page Editor) are far more readable and usable than sentence style (Project explorer, Page editor as advocated above).

Apple's Human Interface Guidelines http://bit.ly/hJpu0z also advocate Title style.

Microsoft from Vista onwards seems to have gone from Title style to Sentence style interfaces. An attempt to make the UI seem more approachable and friendly perhaps?

[Tim Green]

The gridlines setting should be saved, we'll look into that.