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Remove or improve "Help Files"


Pereira

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If you find it useful in its current form then please state why it is useful for you and why you believe it should not be changed into a better system i.e better layout, more readable, better promotion of them and possibly have them appear in overlay pop-ups etc (just a suggestion).



Simple, centralized, and not gimmicky would be my reason.
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Here is a perfect example of how I would suggest to display help files using overlays. Note: you should still be able to create them and they could still all be displayed as a list of titles on a specific help page.





Links or even question mark symbols like above could be displayed on the registration page for example. They could use short descriptions and be managed from the the admin panel just as they are now. New pages could be created and added to other areas of the software.



It's quite extensive probably but for me, it would a much better system if executed correctly.



surely, all help files could be opened in an ajax popup...
seems kinda gimmicky to be in core me though... why exactly sort it out by app?
more reusability?
ability to have the help file presented where it is actually... helpful?
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if the help files are to long, make your own help files and link to them, its easy enough done.



I agree. I will be making my own help files for members, not for admin. I still need help on the admin part. I can make better help files, for members, taylored to my site's specific need and located right up fron in a resouce link. I expect this to reduce a lot of the newbie questions. Remember that topic about how dumb some users are? Well maybe that administrator should have created some site specific help files located where his members can fined them.
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Simple, centralized, and not gimmicky would be my reason.




With the current system you have to load 11 pages to view all the help files on this site, each take around one second to load. To me that's far from simple. The current system is also more hidden because the help files are not promoted enough to have any real use. I also never suggested that all the help files could not be accessed from the same place.


surely, all help files could be opened in an ajax popup...


seems kinda gimmicky to be in core me though... why exactly sort it out by app?


more reusability?


ability to have the help file presented where it is actually... helpful?




Well I would suggest to have a help link in the main nav bar that can be viewed as one large page and then have links or symbols (like question marks) around the site to the specific help files (like registration on the registration page) requested with simple, short explanations that open via ajax popup.

A good expample of what I suggest would be the "Quick Navigation" popup. Notice it opens here on a single page and in popup form below:



Other help files could also be viewed within the popup and all the info could still be accessed on one main page. New help files could still be created in the admin panel and added to the list.

I don't have enough time right now to discuss it fully but that's basically what I would suggest. I would imagine it probably has many limitations such as each help file would still have to be requested via ajax (similar to how it is now) but definitions would be shorter, more readable and because of that, it would take less time to load hopefully.

I'm not a coder so I wouldn't exactly know what's possible so feel free to tear the suggestion apart and add your own better suggestions, if any.
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It isn't hidden if you simply add a link in a better area.




Why should I have to do this? They are currently presented too horribly for me to do anything with them anyway. A simple clean font, light background and easy to read descriptions are non existent in the presnt help files. It would also help if they loaded all together instead of individually.

The content, presentation and promotion of the current help files are very poor in the current set up in my opinion.
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Exactly! Both are issues that I think need to be improved.

I really don't see how anyone could disagree that they need improving and why anyone would object to it. Anyway, it's clear we're not going to agree with each other, so I don't see the point in continuing this further unless I understand why you don't think the system should be improved.

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Please remove or improve help files. I believe I was once opposed to the idea but now I feel differently. The current system is totally useless and is not promoted remotely enough for people even to know it even exists, rendering it a useless feature in my opinion. I understand people use it for tutorials etc but this should not be what it is used for. The feature is there to give help for the forum software to general users and not for people that want to know rules/how to customise skins... etc The way it is presented is not up to modern social media standards in my opinion. There is too much information shown and the size of the text is too big. People just want a short explanation for how to use something and they learn the rest through trial and error. For instance, all this just for people wanting to know how to register: Most of these help files could be added to their specific pages. For instance the above could be added to the registration screen instead of some place where it does not get read. Really hope this system gets improved in a future version.



I disagree with you as I can say that the help interface is very helpfully and IPS allows you to change it to something that works for that Admin so it bendable to do many different things. But I would agree that maybe an update to it would help it out a bit.
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