Please bring "See also" to developer.xojo.com

General
1

47676 - [Documentation] Please bring “See also” to developer.xojo.com

Today I was working with color, and in particular looking for how to pop the color picker. I did not remember the keyword.

I searched for “Color” on the classic LR, and at Page Not Found — Xojo documentation was directed to http://developer.xojo.com/Color.

Problem is, I read all there is there, and still had no idea which command to call to pop the picker. Until I had a doubt and came back to the first page. Here I found the below : Select color, of course !

The new LR is nice with a potent search, but what if you don’t know the name of what you are looking for ? That is where the “see also” is extremely valuable.

Please add it to Developer.Xojo.com pages.

See Also
CMY, DarkTingeColor, FillColor, FrameColor, HighlightColor, HSV, LightBevelColor, LightTingeColor, RGB, SelectColor, TextColor, VarType functions; &c literal; Dim, Static, Declare statements; -, +, *, /, <, <=, =, >=, >, <> VarType functions; Boolean, Byte, CFStringRef, Color, CString, Currency, Delegate, Double, Int16, Int32, Int64, Int8, Integer, OSType, PString, Ptr, Short, Single, String, UInt16, UInt32, UInt64,UInt8, UShort, Variant, WindowPtr, WString data types. IsNumeric, Mod, Str, Val, Vartype, functions.

<https://xojo.com/issue/47676>

2

+100. I used the “see also” at the bottom of each page extensively when I was first learning RealBasic. It was invaluable.

3

Funny that, that point came up at the ATL Xojo mtg the other night.

Agreed as well.

4

That’s the main reason why I keep using http://documentation.xojo.com

5

Problem is, pages are moved over to developer.xojo.com such as color, as described above, and see also did not make it there.

Apparently, Feedback says Paul has implemented the request, but yet, here, it does not show. I reloaded with shift to renew the cache, but it still does not show. I have no proxy. The new page content should show, right ?

6

At the top of the page in the “Data Type Summary”, “Class Summary”, etc. there is a section called “Related”.

7

This is much poorer than the directly related items in see also :
CMY, DarkTingeColor, FillColor, FrameColor, HighlightColor, HSV, LightBevelColor, LightTingeColor, RGB, SelectColor, TextColor

8

It is only the default colors like DarkTingeColor which are not directly accessible, you have first to click on ?System Default Colors. Everything else like CMY, HSV, RGB, SelectColor is there.

9

I feel probably because you are very competent, you may be missing the whole interest of the “see also” section of the older LR. YOU know one has to click System Default Colors. Someone else who is not as versed, especially people new to Xojo, would benefit greatly from a less arborescent navigation. Horizontal is key to accessibility IMHO.

10

I have been using RB/RS/Xojo for 16 years and I still use it. Xojo is big and some things I don’t use often… and quite frankly sometime my memory fails … I know what I want but don’t recall the name.

Because of lack of “see also” I use the old docs primarily… I have to think not including it in the new Docs was an oversight, as I can’t seen anyone thinking for second it was good idea NOT to include it!

  • karen
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[quote=325194:@Michel Bujardet]This is much poorer than the directly related items in see also :
CMY, DarkTingeColor, FillColor, FrameColor, HighlightColor, HSV, LightBevelColor, LightTingeColor, RGB, SelectColor, TextColor[/quote]

I agree… I just looked up the new framework Folderitem… I could not find a related link…

Not sure how they would organize the results of that link if an entry has it, but for me at least, a simple compact list of names I can click on at the bottom of the page is much more time efficient/convenient . That would be true even if the “Related” link took me to a list with single line description for each entry (and trees are just cumbersome for a quick look up)… usually the name of the item is descriptive enough.

You don’t want to just display information as a normalized database… While optimal for maintenance of the underlying DB, people are not computers. We think differently

Like the new IDE, the new language reference looks more modern and nicer than the old… but tends to be less efficient in use for a lot of people.

I hope that gets fixed… In the mean time it is another big impediment IMO to moving to the new framework (besides incompleteness and having to mix string and text) for people who need to network done.

  • Karen
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BTW does anybody else find it harder to scan the pages of the new docs to find what info need?

They do look nicer but it sees to me that something about the formatting makes it harder for me to digest the information as quickly as on the old docs.

I realize it might just be my familiarity with the old doc’s layout and format, but it seems like it is more than that for me.

I was wondering if others are finding the same thing.

  • Karen
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You are right, the difference between the font sizes is the problem and lack of horizontal lines. The heading size and small general font size on “docs” show more clearly the different sections, where as on “developer” the headings and body seem to flow together hardly differentiating the sections. This could be worth raising in a suggestion.

14

Xojo.IO.FolderItem does not link to the items of the classic framework as this does not make sense. That is the reason that GetFolderItem etc. are not listed. So as long as the new framework is not complete, there will be “gaps”.

I agree absolutely, the graphics and the general page layout of the new docs are really bad.

15

[quote=325229:@Karen Atkocius]BTW does anybody else find it harder to scan the pages of the new docs to find what info need?

They do look nicer but it sees to me that something about the formatting makes it harder for me to digest the information as quickly as on the old docs.

I realize it might just be my familiarity with the old doc’s layout and format, but it seems like it is more than that for me.

I was wondering if others are finding the same thing.

  • Karen[/quote]

Yes, the old one was much better layout-wise. I think in part not only because we are used to it, but in general it uses the common wiki layout. So, even if someone comes in new to Xojo now, the old wiki layout would be familiar, while the new layout is not.

And the “see also” was FAR more helpful when learning Xojo. I discovered a lot of things by looking at the see also sections. Especially with regards to arrays and strings.

17

I’ve been pondering creating a blog post about ‘discoverability’ in Xojo. I tend to think Xojo does not do as good a job as it could in this area. This is a good thread.

One of the things that I thought of would be to have the New Project/Examples be searchable for keywords. Have a search field and if i wanted to find all of the projects that use TCPSocket it would filter the projects for me. That way I don’t need to know what ‘area’ I’m looking for. I don’t tend to think of the examples and was pleasantly surprised the other day when I looked in the iOS section and found an iOS EasyTCPSocket implementation.

I’m curious how you find the things they’re looking for. I usually start with the Language Reference, then the Forums. What’s the route you go?

18

docs.xojo first, then this forum, never developer.xojo. Did the Xojo people ever give a reason why they move to the new documentation? The wiki is fine and the newer documentation is by far less good than the wiki. And let’s not talk about how much sense it makes to have 2 sets of documentation so long.

19

Google search with site:developer.xojo.com in front of the search terms. Same for the forum with site:forum.xojo.com as the forum search is not working at all.

20

Eli, I don’t think people here are asking how to find particular things. This is about convincing Xojo that they need to improve their great new docs site. And you’re not helping :wink:

21

docs.xojo first, then this forum, never developer.xojo
That is why you never saw the Xojo Documentation.pdf.

You can download it from developer.xojo since… (ages :wink: ). The button is located at the left of the Search field (after the English-USA/language button).

Also, did you see the YES / NO button at the pages bottoms; example: http://developer.xojo.com/userguide/sqlite

Paul is fast to respond from there (Faster than the speed of light).