RE: Documenting two similar interfaces

["Dan Goldstein" <DGoldstein -at- riverainmedical -dot- com>]

Here's what I'd want, if I were the user:

Each Help screen should have a small link on the upper right for
switching between the instructions for Ribbon and Classic. (Examples
include the Page Options link on the Yahoo home page, the Edition link
on the CNN home page, etc.) The Help file remembers your current choice
not only while you navigate through the Help file, but also when you
close and reopen it.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sarah Blake
> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 11:15 AM
> To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> Subject: Documenting two similar interfaces
> 
> To save me reinventing the wheel...
> 
> I'm currently working on a project where we're upgrading the 
> UI to use a new 'ribbon'-style interface (a la MS Word), but 
> users will also have the option to use the familiar 'classic' 
> interface.  The documentation will therefore need to deal with both.
> 
> I'm not sure which of these will be the default; I suspect 
> the ribbon interface, but I don't know for certain.  And 
> while the placement of functions within menus is similar 
> between the two, it's not identical.
> 
> At the moment, I'm looking at basically doing the following:
> 
> 1. From Furniture > Hatstand (or Interior > Furniture > 
> Hatstand if using the Classic interface)
> 
> ...but the help is the approximate size of War and Peace, and 
> giving double directions for each task seems a bit 
> cumbersome, especially when (as seems inevitable) I'm going 
> to have to go back through in a couple of releases' time, 
> removing one set.
> 
> If I have to, then I have to, but does anyone else who's gone 
> through this process have any tips or suggestions?  (The 
> documentation format is CHM, created from XML source files.)
> 

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