As a former C++ developer, I can safely say...'I feel
your pain'.. :-)
I'll be happy to help with the help file of The
Regulator... let me know..
I'm starting to appreciate that technical writing class
I had to take in college. I guess that's one benefit of
getting a CE degree (that's Civil Engineering, not
Computer Engineering).
If I had more free time I'd give it a shot but I'm
already working way too much for my wife to tollerate me
doing freebie work on the side. Sorry.
Thanks for your honesty...and respect. As HP info
engineer (what they called tech writers) John Bowie from
Colorado says, "Software engineers code for the
CPU, but information engineers [read: technical
communicators] code for the human mind." And fo
us humans, it's not either/or, in/out, 1/0...it's more
"it depends."
Another key task, of course, is to know your users. Find
out what your users really need, by watching them
attempt to do their jobs. Watching users is the best
input you can get to determine what to write.
Best of luck!
joe
Joe Sokohl
facetime.blogspot.com
As a technical writer, I share your pain. Writing Help
files can be challenging. It not only can be tough
trying to deciding how to filter the information you
want to include in online Help (just dumping a user
manual into a Help format is the lazy way out), but it's
also tough to massage that information so that it's not
too verbose or too sparse.
It takes time, it takes practice. And, even then, it's
not always that easy.