[PD] helpfiles

Hans-Christoph Steiner hans at eds.org
Sat Jan 6 14:57:14 CET 2007


On Jan 6, 2007, at 1:44 AM, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, Kyle Klipowicz wrote:
>
>> I wish that individual files would have their own separate help  
>> files quite often.  Say, when getting help for ctrlin or midiin  
>> (or others of their ilk), it's quite annoying to new (and more  
>> seasoned) users to get detailed information on these objects.
>
> While I agree that this particular helpfile could be somewhat more  
> than just hands-on guess-what-this-is-for, I believe that breaking  
> it down would remove the big picture: it would deemphasize the  
> relationships, the patterns. Those classes are better explained as  
> a group because half of them are opposite of the other half and  
> each pair of opposites shares some behaviour with another pair.  
> e.g. I can organise those in a grid like
>
> [ctlin]  [notein]
> [ctlout] [noteout]
>
> And so, if I teach those, why would I want to teach each of them as  
> if it lived in a bubble, when I could teach the rows and columns of  
> that grid, the in-ness, the out-ness, the ctl-ness and the note- 
> ness of those things?

No one said anything about ignoring other objects.  You should any  
other object to make good examples, that's the important part.  And  
each help file should highlight the object in question and the  
specifics of that object.

.hc

>
>  _ _ __ ___ _____ ________ _____________ _____________________ ...
> | Mathieu Bouchard - tél:+1.514.383.3801 - http://artengine.ca/matju
> | Freelance Digital Arts Engineer, Montréal QC Canada


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Man has survived hitherto because he was too ignorant to know how to  
realize his wishes.  Now that he can realize them, he must either  
change them, or perish.    -William Carlos Williams






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