TonyE
Posts: 1551
Joined: 5/23/2006 From: MN, USA Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Texican Some of these games have 200 page manuals, which take up a lot of paper to print and are awkward to reference on the computer when you have game running (i.e., minimizing game window, bringing up the manual in Acrobat, etc.). It would be nice if the dev's started putting the manuals "in-game", so if you have a question about a rule, you could click on an icon and bring up the manual, scroll through it, get your answer, all while still running the game. Just a suggestion. I can speak to a couple of reasons it doesn't happen more often. Creating Windows standard context sensitive help files is a real PITA! The good tools to make such manuals make is a little less horrendous but also cost big money (RoboHelp $1000, Doc-To-Help $900) PER author. It is so much cheaper to buy Adobe Acrobat and make an unlinked PDF, not to mention unimaginably easier. It surprises me that anyone makes context sensitive Windows help files! There are other intermediate options that can be used, straight HTML that the game opens contextually, much easier to create and maintain. That leaves motivation. Most of us just want to write code and get stuck doing support as well. I for one am happy to build a HTML calling mechanism in programs but there is little chance I'll be the content creator of that Help unless I'm getting paid well to do so.
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Sincerely, Tony Eischens Harpoon (HC, HCE, HUCE, Classic) programmer HarpGamer.com Co-Owner
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