RE: Documentation: a rant and a cry for help

Colin, et al...

Those of you that are feeling as strongly about this that are going to
Common should not only make your feelings known to the guys doing the pubs
at the IBM expo (they're really nice folks so don't beat them up too
bad:), but you should all stand in line at Soundoff and each let your
feelings be known...the more the merrier...



On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Colin Williams wrote:

> Your right Martin, this was the discussion here some months ago, that
> V4R4 manuals are only available online basically,
> and the online manuals are badly organised.
> 
> Personally I acess the manuals at least once a day, and am not looking
> forward to having to log on to do this.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: McCallion, Martin [mailto:MccalliM@Midas-Kapiti.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 3:10 PM
> To: 'midrange-l@midrange.com'
> Subject: Documentation: a rant and a cry for help
> 
> 
> Hi all.
> 
> We recently upgraded a machine t V4R4, and I've been looking at getting
> the documentation installed.  Now, I knew that some of the docs had been
> moved to the "Infocenter" and had to be viewed in a browser; I can cope
> with that.  The rest are still in BookMangler format, or whatever it's
> called.  I know this was discussed at some length here in the past.
> 
> But as far as I know, one additional little feature never came up.
> 
> Before I started I wanted to check the existing books, so I typed
> STRINFSKR.
> 
> If you're on V4R4 and haven't tried it, try it now; go on.
> 
> What you get is message CPFA27F.  I'll quote its entire text, for those
> of you who aren't fortunate enough to be in this rarefied atmosphere:
> 
> Message . . . . :   Command STRINFSKR has been removed.
> 
> Cause . . . . . :   Command STRINFSKR has been removed and is no longer
> 
>   available.
> 
> Recovery  . . . :   Use the IBM online library reader program to read
> the     
>   Softcopy Library CD-ROM from your workstation.  You can also view or
> print  
>   the AS/400 Online Library from the Internet.  See the readme.txt file
> on the
>   CD-ROM for instructions for using the CD-ROM or for the Internet
> address.   
> 
> So, there it is: IBM are finally trying to declare the death of the
> green screen.
> 
> Maybe your developers who are stuck on dumb terminals never RTFM anyway;
> but now they _can't_.
> 
> So after I prized my dropped jaw off the desk, I decided to install the
> Infocenter.  Stuck the CD in, read the readme. It says, "run the
> setup.exe in the root directory of the CD."  Fine.  There isn't one.
> But there is one in \inst32.  I ran that.  I got: "Unable to locate
> source file directory.  Install aborted."
> 
> So I tried double-clicking on index.htm in the root of the CD.  That
> worked.  It gave me a nice page with two links.  One to the on-line
> infocenter at Boulder, the other to the "Local" version.
> 
> The local version wasn't found.  I viewed source.  The link is to:
> "file:///c:\info\index.htm".  Yeah, hard-coded to the C: drive.
> 
> Now, I could no doubt manually copy the files to a drive and kludge up a
> working index page by editing IBM's HTML; but is this really how I
> should have to install IBM's documentation?  Don't they _wan't_ me to
> read it?
> 
> To top it all off, the other CD, the one with the softcopy books,
> doesn't contain an installable licensed program: how do I install it on
> the AS/400?  I'm sure I've done it that way in the past.  Ok, OK, I've
> just been reminded that the correct way is with the RSTSHF (Restore
> shelf) command.  But, to really, really cap it all, RSTSHF gives
> CPFA27F.  Yes, it has been removed as well!
> 
> Sorry about the length of this post, but HELLLLLLLPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Martin.
> 
> --                                                                     
> Martin McCallion                 
> Midas-Kapiti International
> Work:  mccallim@midas-kapiti.com
> Home: martin.mccallion@ukonline.co.uk
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