Re: Examples of Minimalist Writing

[Mike Starr <mike -at- writestarr -dot- com>]

Well I just picked this particular topic as an example I could use to demonstrate my thoughts about minimalism... I use the product on a daily basis and use this feature regularly. It seems you lost sight of the reason I presented this help topic. The topic ID isn't at all germane to what I was discussing in my article. In addition, a topic named "Output .GIF files" would have to be far more in depth than just addressing the 256-color limitation of the output files, so using that for a topic title would be not just minimalist, but absurdly so.

Had I been creating the help content for this particular product, rest assured, I'd have not only considered a different name for the topic but I'd have made sure that it was consistent with all of the other similar topics and indexed six ways from Sunday so that no matter what obscure term a user might apply to this particular  topic, they'd be able to find it. Not only that but I would not have authored a topic so dismally minimal. That sort of stuff may be okay with Microsoft, but it's not okay with me.

Mike
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Milan Davidovic wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 6:03 AM, Mike Starr <mike -at- writestarr -dot- com> wrote:
>> However, thinking about it a little bit, yes, there is a good reason that this might be a primary task. If I want to output .GIF files, they're limited to a maximum of 256 colors.
> 
> How about naming the task "Output .GIF files" -- which could contain a
> Note about doing the Save As?
> 
> Thanks.
> 

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