OT: Unbelievable On-Line Help Stupidity

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:25:29 -0500, "Anne Robotti" 
<arobotti at journalregister.com> wrote:

>> Sure makes writing installation procedures fun.  No
>> matter *what* you do, some users will think you're
>> a fool.  :-(
>
>Unless you want to do something *totally* crazy & out there, like
>stabilize your software, perform adequate testing, document the actual
>interface and distribute it to the users according to the version they
>buy! But where was I going with that?

No idea.  While I totally agree that what you suggest is
the right way to go, there seem to be a few variables in
the case at hand that are hard for a Help author to control
for.  How are you to know whether a system is upgraded or
is an original install?  When a system offers user choice
of UI features, how do you know which ones were chosen?
When the manufacturer of the OS can't keep Help matching
the installed system, what chance does an ISV author have?
And Vista has *how* many versions???

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy at omsys.com>  http://www.omsys.com/