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Maybe it's just me, but every time I "come back" to Revolution for a project, the IDE help stack gets more and more complex, and less and less useful.

Is it possible to use Jeanne Devoto's original help stack, and is it available? I NEVER find ANY useful information in the current help stack.

Hi Troy,

I completely agree with you. I know someone created a very simple Help stack. I'll ask him if we can re-distribute it.

Best,

Mark

tanks mark for your icq!


that's what it looks like

and here is the stack

have fun,.. it is still a bit buggy but: sorry, no warranty, you use it on your own risk.

if you have any questions about it, ask!

SEIDL.

Hey bene,

the help stack is nifty. I hope you find the time to plan updates on it.

All the best,

Malte

wish I'd known about Benedikt.Seidl's doc stack for the past few months. I'm one of those people who preferred the docs that came with v 1.1.1 to 2.2.1. For me the docs have sucked badly since then. For most things I've been going back to an old install of Rev (and my own Rev docs wiki). Maybe I'll stick with Benedikt's stack (hopefully 2.7.5's docs will be faster, but will probably still be a lot uglier than the v.1.1.1 docs)

I had a look at this stack, but I do not see how it improves the current documentation.

Are there particular search terms that work in this stack as opposed to the Revolution documentation?

If you provide us with some clear examples where you find the Revolution documentation does not provide good search results, we can use that information to improve the documentation.

We welcome any more feedback.

Speed, Marcus, speed!!! It is all about speed! It takes 1 minute to open the 2.7.x docs on a Macintosh 350 Mhz G3. Even though 350Mhz is extremely slow according to todays "standards", 1 minute is simply too long to for a simple task like opening a window and it seems that many people agree with me that the docs are simply too slow.

I took Benedicts stack and adjusted to my own needs. It opens in less than a second even on my 350Mhz machine. Actually, it doesn't find all search terms, but that's a very small price for the speed I get in return.

There is another issue that bothers me. All those lengthy scripts, the heavy graphics, the big windows, they just disturb me and distract me while doing my work. The help stack inspired by Benedikt can be very small and my plugin that opens it only takes a very tiny place in the corner of the screen. So, my alternative doesn't disturb me and leaves me plenty of place for my actual work. The stack is very heavy and adds 20 to 40MB to Rev's memory requirements, which is too much if my actual work already needs 250MB plus 200MB for the Rev IDE.

Also, I don't use the majority of features in the docs stacks. I only want to be able to search the dictionary. For everything else, I can just use Acrobat Reader, Google, Gmane, QuickTime etc outside Rev. Often, I use a different machine for searching the internet, reading tutorials etc, so I don't need them to be part of the IDE.

Please, don't consider this a rant. I am just replying your question and I suspect I reflect the feeling of quite a few of RunRev's clients. I think it is important that you know this and I don't mean to offend anyone, although I have become quite annoyed by the new docs. Can't we just have the docs of Rev 2.6.1 or even 1.1.1 back and forget the whole thing?

Best regards,

Mark

Hi Marcus, we really, really appreciate seeing people like you and Oliver commenting on stuff in these forums. I didn't expect to see it, but I'm so glad that you are both doing it.

I would agree with Mark (and Troy). I had been keeping quiet about the docs for a long time. I know 3 years or so ago there were a lot of complaints about the docs. I didn't see that those complaints were justified at the time, but I just thought that was something peculiar to me. As the docs were changed (and for the worse), I just thought they must now be meeting others' needs (and indeed the complaints abated), so I kept quiet. I just went back to using the old docs from 2.2.1. But when I saw today that there were others who found that the docs were a backward step, I thought I'd chime in.

Another problem with the current docs, is that related terms are simply not obvious stylistically. In Benedikt's stack they are in a different location (as they are in the old docs), so it cues one to their existence. I know that the old docs had that feature, so when I couldn't find something in the 2.7.x docs I (sometimes) would remember that and hunt down the 'See Also' section to find the related terms.

To be honest (and I hope the original designer of the old docs reads this), the docs in 1.1.1 to 2.2.1 are a work of beauty. I find the docs in 2.6.1 and 2.7.x both rather brash. I know that 'there is no accounting for taste', but the old docs look very chic to me.

I have kept quiet about my misgivings about the docs because I didn't want to add to the support/development burden of RunRev. After so many people complained so vociferously a few years ago, I thought it was better just to keep quiet.

The one good thing about the new docs is that they are in a format that means that others can take the documentation and manipulate it for themselves. I took the 2.6.1 docs, and turned them into a user-commentable wiki (although I haven't really made it public). I often use this in preference to the built-in docs, because it is just about as fast (even though it is hosted on a sremote internet server across a 2Mbs link with a slower CPU than my 1.67mhz PB), AND it will find far more terms. For example, the 2.7.4 docs only turn up two items containing 'SSL'; my wiki index turns up 8 items. The 2.7.4 docs turn up about 32 items for 'control'; my docs turn up about 145 items. So, it is not just speed, it is also a question of what is being indexed. (My wiki also indexes the glossary and FAQ which is useful, but I did NOT include those hits in the count of 145 above - with those hits I get 252 containing the word 'control').

I know that RunRev are in the process of producing their own wiki of the docs, and I think that is a good idea (well, it will be if the indexing is very extensive, and if users can help evolve the docs).

I am so sorry to be making this complaint about the docs. You guys really rock, and in my 20 years of working with computers Rev is still just about the best thing I've ever worked with (my current license doesn't expire until March 2009)!