Short-n-sweet

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

On Oct 24, 2007, at 7:22 AM, Carl Karsten wrote:
>
> Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> ...
>> Second, how to present GUI vs. terminal instructions for doing the 
>> same thing. I think this depends on how long each of them are. I 
>> think GUI instructions should normally go first. But if the GUI 
>> instructions are long and the terminal instructions are very short, 
>> reversing the order may be better for readers on average. Something 
>> like this:
>
> What are the pros-n-cons of folding/hiding/suppressing/visually 
> segregating the GUI from the CLI instructions?  I realize it adds a 
> level of complexity to the docs, but it might be worth it.
> ...

That would be nifty. Microsoft uses expandable sections heavily in 
their help pages. <http://urlx.org/microsoft.com/44836>

I don't know how we'd go about getting it implemented in either Yelp or 
MoinMoin, though.

> ...
> Another thought is a user preference: show gui, show cli.  view a 
> page, and initially see only what you want to see.  For someone with 
> just GUI, the WorldofWarcraft would be pretty short (and sweet.)  
> Click the "show cli content" and get the cli stuff.    If you are like 
> me, you would have gui turned off.

There would be a few problems with having a preference for it. Some 
people would want to use the terminal for some things (if they already 
had a terminal open, for example), and the GUI for others. Also, some 
things are only possible in one interface or the other.

Cheers
-- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/