Visual Analyser Project (
current v. 25 Silvia edition )
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The "democratic help" system One of the most significant issues with VA is the lack of a proper help system. For many years, I’ve attempted to write at least a basic help guide, but without success. There are two main reasons for this: first, writing a comprehensive help system takes a lot of time; second, I don’t earn money from VA (except for some symbolic donations, which are very modest). Creating a true help guide would require even more time than I spent developing VA itself, but I also need to work for a living! The second, and equally important, reason is that my knowledge of English is not very strong. I also don’t have the time to improve it, primarily because I work in Italy for a company where English proficiency isn’t required. This makes it very difficult for me to write a comprehensive "book" in English about VA. From the earlier versions of VA, I introduced a basic help system consisting of a set of .rtf files. These files can be loaded automatically by pressing the "Help" button, which is available in most of VA's windows. Starting with the 2011 version, I expanded this system to cover all windows and sub-windows of the program. I also fixed a bug in the last two releases of VA related to issues with end-of-line characters The mechanism is quite simple: the help system consists of a window that displays a .rtf file, loaded from the \help directory of VA (created during installation), if the file exists. If the file is missing, the window still opens but remains empty, displaying a warning message to inform the user about the missing file. Currently, all existing help files are available in a zip archive: And they, with the 2014 version are deployed with the setup program. I.e. they are automatically installed with VA installation. They are out-to-date and anyway incomplete. But the point is another: in this way I can "fill" the file independently from the official release of VA; in fact will be possible to download it separately and add to the \help directory of VA. And, mainly, everyone can modify or write it "from scratch". Or - very important - correct my English!! So, for example, you can invoke the Voltmeter instrument and click the "help" button. At the moment, will appear the standard help window showing the message: "No help found. Check your help directory for file:Help\VoltMeter.rtf" At this point, you know that: the help has not been still written, and that the corresponding file is "Voltmeter.rtf". So if you are experienced with the voltmeter and want to collaborate with me, simply you can write the help file (for example with Wordpad editing the Voltmeter.rtf file), send it to me by e-mail and I can include it in official release of VA or simply let other people to download (for example from this page). As obvious you'll be explicitly mentioned in the page of help download as author of the help (if desired). Write to the mail address at the bottom of the page. Isn't it a good idea? |
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