Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!

[Harry Bacheler]

To All:

At the Johnson Space Center in Houston there was a project called SAIL 
(Shuttle Avionics Integration Lab).

It wat written up in one of the first or second years of publication of Fast 
Company (highly recommended).

One of the methods of supporting the project was to have everything 'flowed' 
out to show every possibility that needed to be considered for the 
development of the communicaitons between the ground and the shuttle.  This 
was done BEFORE the first line of code was written.  I understand that there 
were 6 million lines of code.

The document written defining the Software Capability Model refers to the 
project.

Since I have been in the software and documentaiton business since 1970 I 
have found that doing flowcharts/process flows and similar methods, I was 
able to do a lot more if I 'flowed' the process first.  Even developing the 
structure of a document is aided by using flowcharts.  They don't have to be 
elegant, just able to be revised as information becomes know.

My advise - use flow charts to develop your thoughs and work.

Sincerely,

Harry

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pro TechWriter" <pro.techwriter at gmail.com>
To: <neilson at windstream.net>
Cc: <techwr-l at lists.techwr-l.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: Documenting interactive configuration - HELP!


> What about a flow chart? Could you break it out by functional groups
> (instead of screens) and either do flows with decisions, or if...then..
> statements (or tables)?
>
> Sometimes if a process is very complicated, I start with a flow chart
> anyway, before I start writing. It's especially useful to use post-it 
> notes
> and a whiteboard, if the process is very complex.
>
> Hope this helps.
> PT
>
>
> On 2/21/07, neilson at windstream.net <neilson at windstream.net> wrote:
>>
>> I'm looking for ideas here... I'm documenting the configuration of dozens
>> of different kinds of software that are used on the company's computers.
>> Most of the them use some sort of configuration script or XML or 
>> whatever.
>> To document the configuration I can include the file or refer to it, or
>> include a portion of it, possibly with explanations.
>>
>> One program, however, is configured interactively. The configuration 
>> seems
>> to consist of whatever the tech typed into the config screens as they 
>> went
>> past his eyes.
>>
>> I tried writing up a precis of the answers that differed from the 
>> default,
>> and it's horribly confusing. The obvious alternative, a book full of 
>> screen
>> shots (95 of them--they're hard to see, and a lot of them are nearly
>> identical), would be next to useless.
>>
>> Has any of you ever successfully attacked this problem? What did you do?
>>
>> I'm hoping there's a tool or command to produce a config listing, and 
>> that
>> our tech has merely not discovered it yet. I cannot see how the software
>> vendor could develop a product for which a config listing could not be
>> produced.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> --Peter Neilson
>> laboring somewhere in North Carolina, probably under a delusion.
>>
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>
> -- 
> PT
> pro.techwriter at gmail.com
> I'm a Technical Technical Writer!
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> printed documentation. Features include single source authoring, team 
> authoring,
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>
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