Line styles

[bzdelmarParticipant]

The style menu includes setting up 4 line styles with parameters such as 8,2,4,2.  The manual and training materials I’ve found do not explain what these parameters control nor how to use these line styles.

I am just starting to use the program and find it powerful with remarkable power.  The documentation, however, is quite poor – lacking sufficient information and detail.  I would say that this software would be great if there were a way to obtain detailed descriptions of each command and option.

[bzdelmarParticipant]

OK, I figured it out – but why not make it easier on the user by putting the information in the reference manual?

[dgteamModerator]

Glad you were able to figure it out – but we absolutely want the materials to be as helpful as possible.

It would be helpful to know what manual you were using, the pdf manual or the on-line  Reference manual  Each have sections for the variables, commands, layout settings, etc., but they don’t have the exact same information.

In the online version, the Style settings has a small section on Line styles. Was this the section you were referring to that was lacking?

I also checked our pdf manual and the section on the Style settings (Chapter 7) looks like it is missing any explanation.

FYI — As most documentation make sense to be on-line these days, we intend to have the on-line Reference manual to be the most complete (document every option and setting).  Overtime we are considering reducing the pdf manual to a shorter introduction/overview of the Program, but would not be as comprehensive.

 

 

[bzdelmarParticipant]

I’m a bit old-fashioned, I guess, and was using the pdf manual.  Thanks.  I will start using the online manual for now on.  After using many other graphing programs over the last 40 years (starting if I remember correctly with Cricket Graph), DataGraph feels different but much more capable than what I’m used to.  I just need to adjust my way of approaching the program.

 

[sandriftParticipant]

For the DG team:  I understand your logic regarding moving towards having the online documentation be the most comprehensive.  However, I make a fair amount of use of the PDF when I’m away from the Internet, whether it be during plane trips (which are admittedly suspended for now but used to be frequent) or during “working” vacation/camping trips.

If the PDF is not intended to be as fully informative as it would appear based on its length, it would be helpful to specifically identify locations where the online help contains more details.

[dgteamModerator]

For bzdelmar – You might also want to watch some videos:  https://www.youtube.com/DataGraph

The nice part about the on-line manual is that it is searchable and we can have gifs, larger images and links, but it is good feedback to know that people still rely on the pdf. At the moment, there are likely are some things better documented on-line and others better in the pdf, but we have tried to make both fairly comprehensive.

sandrift – That is a good point about clarifying what is in the on-line versus pdf.  In general, the approach we are planning for now is to move things out of the pdf things that are likely not used by most users. For example, the pdf has an entire chapter on the Import Special data parser.  This is a great functionality but not something most users would need.  We plan to move this documentation on-line and will not be in the next version of the manual.  At least this is our thinking.  Appreciate your feedback.

 

[sandriftParticipant]

DG team: You may or may not be suggesting another alternative here that sounds different than I read your initial reply.  I read the initial reply as moving towards a relatively small “Getting Started” -type PDF document, but perhaps (based on your second reply) you mean something more like a “Most Commonly Used Features” PDF which sounds longer than I was imagining.  In the latter case, you could consider, as you say, removing virtually all mention of the least-used (or perhaps more kindly described as “power-user-oriented”) features (pointing to online resources), and focus on including detailed descriptions of all aspects of the most commonly used features.

Just a thought.  I don’t write documentation, but I can appreciate that for a program like DataGraph getting it right for the most users is a lot of work.  🙂

[dgteamModerator]

sandrift:  That is a good description of how the manual could evolve, moving more “power-user-oriented” features on-line.   As we have not started this change we are still thinking about where the cut-off would be, but this is a good suggestion.  Thanks!

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