Re: Infocenter (was: V5R1 Install Changes) -- MIDRANGE-L

No success here. Last year I started an email dialog with a gentleman who
works on InfoCenter. I wanted to know why all the explanatory background
information had been eliminated from the TCP/IP topics. He explained that
was their direction with all the subjects - "If you want to know about
TCP/IP there are many good books available." I suggested that sometimes it
is better to have the background presented from the point of view of the
particular platform or product you're working with. I told the guy that
there were others who would like to offer their input (midrange-l) and I
asked if he could get me a contact point with someone of decision-making
capacity. He said he would try. That is where the conversation ended.

One time on a support call I posed the question of where such and such was
documented. They (no sh_t) referred me to an old version of softcopy
library. Of course, that was a support person, not an InfoCenter
representative, but it goes to show that internally they have to find the
information the same as everyone else and they can't do it with InfoCenter.

In regard the expense of printed manuals, I agree. However, I just wish they
would have stopped with Softcopy Library. That way all the information was
organized into manuals so it made sense. You could easily tell someone (or
make a note of) a book number and page number. You still had a search
engine, except that the organization into manuals made the search results SO
MUCH easier to use. And because of the simple HTML, Softcopy Library was
much faster to use, even over a dialup connection. Did I forget to mention
that you had the complete content of the manual rather than the little
subset that some webmaster/marketing person has determined to be the
appropriate amount, as not to scare off potential customers by making the
machine look too complicated?

-Marty

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Date: 18 Mar 2002 17:29:07 -0800
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
From: thomas@inorbit.com
Subject: Re: Infocenter (was: V5R1 Install Changes)
Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com

On Mon, 18 March 2002, Buck Calabro wrote:

> You may disagree with the route IBM have chosen but the Infocenter people
> are very active listeners.  If you have a suggestion, clink the 'Comment'
> link at the bottom of the page (every page!) and tell them what would hel=
p
> you make better use of Infocenter.  Or take the feedback link (the little
> pencil icon) at the top of each page.

Hmmm... yes and no. While they're pretty good at listening to talk about pr=
esentation, they've been very resistant to any comments about content. It u=
sed to be possible to open documentation APARs to get manuals corrected. Th=
e process with Infocenter didn't seem to be mature last time I tried report=
ing a factual issue with content.

I'd like to hear if others have had success.

Tom Liotta


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