Documentation Browser

Obleo · Post by **Obleo** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:22 pm

First off I did not know what topic to post this under.

In version 2.7 rev studio the documentation browser does not find 1/3 of the info you need to find, As it does in rev studio 2.6. It looks nicer but having to spend way more time looking for function listings etc just is flat out frustrating. Specially if In a earlier version it worked great.

This has been the biggest disappointment with the new version, finding the info needed in a timely matter.

I guess I like to see the 2.6 version of the documentation browser in 2.7 + versions. I do not care about what it looks like. Over it just working.

BvG · Post by **BvG** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:42 pm

Yeah, i am with you here, the documentation has taken a big step backwards in usability. However it is way faster now, and hopefully they will integrate the old functionality with newer releases again.

Obleo · Post by **Obleo** » Tue May 02, 2006 4:32 am

Using 2.7.1 tonight, I notice this has been fixed to work much better. Thank you for listening, this really helps.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed May 03, 2006 11:43 pm

My experience is that the dictionary is much slower in 2.7.1 than in 2.6.1. Also opening the docs stack takes a lot of time. I don't quite understand it, as it takes Rev only a few milliseconds to filter a variable with thousands of records. Why are the docs so slow?

Troy · Post by **Troy** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 7:57 pm

Yes, I have to say, I'm not happy with the new Documentation tool. It is smart, slick, apparently well-programmed, and almost useless. (No offense to the developer meant.) It simply doesn't work like I want/need it to. It is slow to find information with, has functions I don't want or need, and doesn't serve its purpose.

My preference of all the attempts that have been made for this tool? The original which shipped with Rev 1.1. It was fast, clear, and functional.

My next choice? The second version.

Basically, the doc stack has been getting more and more bloated, and less and less useful with each revision. At this point, I think it serves only as an obstacle to learning Rev.

Bring back the original doc stack or one like it. Maybe release it as open source.

What are the docs driven by, anyway? XML? I haven't been inclined to look.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 8:09 pm

I completely agree, Troy.

The docs are in xml format, but need to be parsed by Revolution before they can be displayed. This could be one reason why the docs are slow.

Have a look at this.

http://forums.runrev.com/phpBB2/viewtop ... ight=#1085

and feel free to post comments to that thread.

Best,

Mark

Troy · Post by **Troy** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:02 am

Yes, I saw that thread as well... in fact, I started it.

But, to me that looks like another stack which has problems, and the author admits to it having bugs.

The original documentation stack worked quite well, and was fast. It wasn't perfect, but was better then all the ones that have followed. Everything since then has been a mistake at trying to "improve" on it.

The current stack is barely useable for anything. The function which supposedly will let you copy scripts from the getting started section does not seem to do anything at all, and it is even resistant to copy/paste, at least on OSX.

Benedikt.Seidl · Post by **Benedikt.Seidl** » Tue Jul 18, 2006 3:55 am

have you tried my stack? of course there are some bugs (e.g. the stack does not find synonyms, there are some unaesthetic problems with resizing or some links are broken) but it _is_ much faster than the original docs stack.

SEIDL.

Richmond · Post by **Richmond** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 6:41 pm

In some ways the Documentation Browser in RR 2.0.1 was better than in subsequent releases insofar as it was more intuitive and sucked less RAM.

Were RR happy I would be prepared to hive off a standalone of the RR 2.0.1 documentation - bearing in mind that it is out of date in several ways.

Obleo · Post by **Obleo** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 6:01 am

Another thing that would help is if the documentation browser could re open once you quite it with out having to save everything your working on. and then quit and restart just to open the documentation browser again.

If you say just keep it open all the time. I am sure you noticed there is already too many windows as is open when building anything that it is a big mess special on a laptop screen.

thanks, hope to see this in future releases

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 7:21 am

Hi Obleo, which version of Revolution are you using? I havent' noticed the problem you describe in Rev 2.7.2.

Best,

Mark

hammo65 · Post by **hammo65** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:02 pm

In the preferences panel I would like to be able to change the font size for the A-Z dictionary in the Help Menu. There are some visually impaired people like me who can barely read the dictionary items. Fortunately, the font size can be increased in the preferences panel for the Script Editor.

Richmond · Post by **Richmond** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 3:03 pm

From what I have seen of the Doc Browser in RR 2.7.5 Beta it is greatly improved.][/b]