That might as well be. For a start-up. But not for a company in the business for decades. What is wrong in telling them “get someone who does this kind of work professionally”?
@JoJu there is a difference between giving feedback and bashing.
I sometimes ask myself if you really re-read your post prior to posting.
There is a “trick” used in US politics which is called (if I remember well) the “Washington Post leak test”.
When some high-ranking official writes an email, a message, whatever, before sending it out, he must read it again imagining that the same message leaked to the WP. If something doesn’t feel quite right, the message should probably be edited before reaching the final recipient…
Steven.
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I don’t know how involved the Washington Post is in techncial writing. I am, and what you call bashing is my opinion as an expert. Take it or leave it. I won’t powder sugar on a cake which is in too many aspects hard to digest and worse: no improvement to the currently existing manuals.
I think you went public a bit too early. I would have given feedback if there was a kind of a poll or something like “what aspects are essential for you to find in our manuals?”.
Instead you firstly present a preview leading to the same manual many of us are complaining about, just as HTML-version. And the next two links are also work in progress. Call my reaction bashing, but this here is not a thinktank to tell DxO how it should be done.
To come back to your picture with the Washington Post: How would you feel as a reader of the Washington Post, if they publish drafts, half-baken facts or simply notes like something happenend somewhere?
Probably in your browser you set the search to “begins with” instead of “contains”.
Try again. You’ll get 1 match for “reFRAMING” 
Steven.
Your example is different, because you have lowercase and uppercase. This is why when you search for “begins with” it founds “FRAMING”.
Try this:
I write here the “word” we want to look for: “AZERTY”
Search for “begins with the last 4 letters of the above word”. You’ll have 0 results.
OK. It still makes searching more difficult than some would expect.
What I wanted to find was all references to framing and what I got was a list of pages, which I then had to instigate a second search, just to find the word in an absolutely massive page.
My beef is that the pages are far too long because they are essentially only one page per main subject, whereas it would have been easier to glance through a smaller page for just one section. As it is, searching doesn’t just search in a section, it has to search the whole page and, sometimes, it is easier to scan a limited amount of text than to have to use a search.
@StevenL this post was an answer to my post, but I believe it was meant to Joanna’s? If yes, no need to answer.
I don’t know where you find this additional behaviour of the search function, I can’t find them.
Never the less, what about the index of the PL manual?
George
How about completely dropping the user guides and lowering all DxO prices by 50%?
Just kidding…?
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I think the manuals and help documentation are fine. We all like good documentation, its very helpful, but this is complex software and much of it’s functionality is derived from use and learn.
Keeping documentation updated is hard enough already without adding the complexity of localization by language and tying that to a support portal or document database, etc.
Would I like it, sure, but this type of endeavor requires vast resources.
Then how would you bring the right information to the users who paid for the software?
That’s your opinion. Based on? No bashing intended but do you find what you’re looking for?
I’m keeping my software documentation of 400…500 pages updated in 10 languages and 5 different variants. With software texts of 3600 lines and further 500 messages. It’s absolutely possible, given the right tools and concepts. Yes, it’s work, but there must be a reason to pay my salary, and there must also be a reason our customers are happy. Apparently we’re doing a good job in our technical editor’s office. I’ve seen too much app “manuals” which too often lead into a desert of desinformation.
Hey! I’ve been using PL since v1 and I’m still finding stuff I previously didn’t know about.
And, yes, I have the “manual” and I’ve watched some tutorial videos and I’ve taught classes, but a lot of the stuff I have discovered recently isn’t even mentioned in the manual.
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Yesterday I got a message box after installing our software into a virtual machine saying “Fraud or oversight? The system date has been fiddled with” Haven’t seen that one before 