Re: Venting about docs

I missed Art's original e-mail - and it doesn't show up in the cdi archive - so I presume it went to informix-list@iiug.org and the forward mechanism failed again. Anyway, I have to agree with Art's comments. It really is a shame that the manuals are of less quality than they were before even if it is because, as Jonathan says, that they are designed to be easier for visually impaired people to use. I wouldn't mind if they were accurate! But the technical content still seems to lag behind reality, especially in more esoteric areas. And I notice that the text is basically the same in the Backup and Restore Guide. I have just been trying to configure onbar with ISM and with the new electronic manuals they can't even provide cross links between these manuals. For those of you who haven't had that privilege, setting up onbar refers to setting up ISM and points to the IBM Informix: Storage Managers Administration Guide. Great. But there is no link to that manual. So I look in the Master Index for "IBM Informix: Storage Managers Administration Guide" and it doesn't exist in the master index. In the end I went back to my (t)rusty 9.3 and 9.4 manuals. I think the concept of having a searchable master index is brilliant (DEC had one for VAX/VMS - now how many years ago was that? ) but in reality it isn't a small job to accomplish this and if not done properly is more of a hindrance than a help - and that will mean more RTFM questions on this list. I can't wait regards Malcolm Jonathan Leffler wrote: > Fernando Nunes wrote: > > Art S. Kagel wrote: > > > >> Since this is shaping up to be a slow posting day, I want to take the > >> opportunity to vent. > >> > >> For years Informix had award winning documentation and, while it took > >> me a while to get used to them when they first showed up in the OL4.01 > >> or OL5 docs, the railroad syntax diagrams were actually easy to read > >> and follow. The original PDFs, whether you like PDFs or not (and I > >> do), were easy enough to navigate with hot links in expected places. > >> So, why were the docs for IDS 9.40 and IDS 10.00 changed to those > >> hairy pseudo railroad diagrams with the footnote pointers to get to > >> hot links? The PDF files are now VERY difficult to navigate and the > >> changes did not make the HTML versions any better. > >> > >> I want my old docs back! Just my opinion. > >> > >> Anyone else got one on this topic? It's got to be better than "Is DB2 > >> dead?" or whatever that thread has morphed into. > >> > >> Art S. Kagel > > > > > > I totally agree with you. > > I'd love to move my customer to 10.00 but I fear the day when I must > > browse those books... Besides being a PITA to use they're even much > > uglier :) > > If it's any consolation, I think the Tech Pubs (ID - Information > Development) people would agree - and the absence of the index letters > at the top of the index pages is a nuisance too. > > However, the reason for the change is so that the manuals can be handled > by automatic systems for the visually impaired - accessibility is the > jargon usually used. The railroad diagrams can, apparently, be handled > better than the much finer ones that used to be in the Informix manuals. > > IBM does a lot of work with the US federal government, and such things > are important to contracts with it. > > -- > Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h> > Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com > Guardian of DBD::Informix v2005.01 -- http://dbi.perl.org/

mweallans@panacea.co.uk wrote: > I missed Art's original e-mail - and it doesn't show up in the cdi > archive - so I presume it went to informix-list@iiug.org and the > forward mechanism failed again. <SNIP> No Malcolm, I posted directly to the NG. But as I note the 9th was a slow posting day, perhaps that was because things were not working properly and the original post didn't go out to everyone and didn't make it into the archive. I saw fewer than a dozen posts that day. Art S. Kagel