[TYPO3-hci] Less ways to do it...

[Cate & Peter]

Hi

>It is not only a question of 'not wanting to use them'. I simply ignored 
>   Mount point at first, because I could not figure out at first what it 
>is good for. For a none Linux user neither the word mount nor the 
>explanation is of any help. It would improve the usability of t3 a lot, 
>if patient people would go through the inline documentation step by step 
>and concentrate on wording.

Yeah, absolutely, as a non-linux user and non-programmer, non-technical
person, etc, I find the most difficult thing is that Im never quite sure if
I am not understanding because this is based on knowledge I do not have, or
if something has gone awry and I am not seeing something that should be
there.

I had this experience just today with the csv importer for tt_address. I
installed the extension, followed the instructions, everything seemed ok...
except I couldn't figure out one little line of "select the file to import
in the backing plugin" ... I couldn't see what was meant. I checked in the
content element, not there. It wasn't coming up as an icon under Web> like
many of the other plugins. Didn't appear in a list under web>plugins.
Searched high and low. Eventually, because I had closed the browser window
where I had opened the online manual, I opened the .swx file from extension
manager to have another look, and low and behold here are a couple of
screenshots that explain what was meant - and I didn't have the icon in my
back end.

Now, as a new user, I had read the manual - how on earth was I to know that
the icon should appear in Tools>CSV importer?? Nowhere in the manual was
that mentioned. If it HAD been mentioned, I would have known to look there,
and would have immediately seen that there was no icon, and not wasted 3
hours googling and trolling through email lists and forums to find nothing
at all about it.

Because there is so much variation on where things appear, it is difficult
to know where to look for things, and difficult to remember what you have
already tried.

I agree that much of the documentation is assuming that the user knows what
they do not yet know - ie, they know what they need to learn, and what
questions to ask. When you don't even know what you need to know, how can
you know what questions to ask??? :)

(I could really turn that into a tongue twister :) )

Unlike many people here on the list, I am not a coder or developer - that is
not my strength.

However, writing usable documentation IS a strength - so if anyone will
volunteer to teach me how things need to be set up, I am quite happy to
assist by proofreading documentation, and showing where some users might
fall down... or I might even be in a position to come alongside and actually
*write* some of the documentation, and have it proof read by some of you
developers later.

Invest a little time in me, and I will save a lot of time for you :)

Cate