Suggestion: Help file change and feature change for command line feature SCAN (and others)

Clinton Thomas
Clinton Thomas Member Posts: 465 ✭✭
edited December 2024 in English Forum


Please add a note to the help file that the scan "path" command does not execute until you restart the application. This should be in the help and is not.

If possible, please add a note that pops up after you run scan "path" that tells you the command will not run until after the application is restarted.

I have used the command before, but always forget to restart,  and when you are helping a new user over the phone it is very easy to forget to tell them to restart the application.

In general, Logos 4 needs to give the user more (actually any) feedback on when a command is entered that it was entered correctly.

The user I was helping was amazed at how the program gave no feedback that he could see on whether or not  the program had accepted the command. 

Regards,

Clinton

PS Duplicate of thread in logos 4 forum at suggestion of one of the MVP's

 

Comments

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 33,288

    Please add a note to the help file that the scan "path" command does not execute until you restart the application. This should be in the help and is not.

    Hi Clinton

    This is in the help file (Windows versions 4.2a RC1) as below:

    image

    Graham

  • Clinton Thomas
    Clinton Thomas Member Posts: 465 ✭✭

    Hi Graham,

    I totally missed the fact that there was help below the list of commands.  Thanks for pointing it out.

    However, to me, the current use of help is lacking. I typed "Scan" into the help search and the two references came up. The first had the command I was looking for and when I click on it,  the "next" chevron becomes greyed out.

    To actually find the help that helped, I had to :

     

    1. Click on help
    2. Type the search term into the window
    3. Click on result you think may help
    4. Notice that the "next" chevron is greyed out.
    5. Type CTL-F to open a sub search
    6. Re-Type command into the new sub-search window to find more results
    7. Use the sub-search chevron to move through the help file and find the actual help.

     

    Steps 4, 5 and 6 were not obvious to me and since there was a result visible on the screen and since the "next" chevron was greyed out, I assumed that was it for the help. Perhaps I am missing something else in my use of the help system. Please correct me if I am wrong

    So my suggestion for point one becomes these two:

    1) When search for help, do not make the user use two different search methods to search through through the help file for terms.

    2) The list of available commands should become hyperlinks so that if you click on one of the commands, you go to the example for that specific command. 

    Regards,

    Clinton

     

     

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 33,288

    Hi Clinton

    I don't see the same behaviour as you describe

    Click on help
    Type the search term into the window

    After these steps I have:

    image

    The top one is relevant to what I am looking for - it shows references to scanning drives

    Click on result you think may help

    When I do this I get to the "Command Box" entry:

    image

    which I scrolled down to get the information I needed.

    Notice that the "next" chevron is greyed out.
    Type CTL-F to open a sub search
    Re-Type command into the new sub-search window to find more results
    Use the sub-search chevron to move through the help file and find the actual help.

    I didn't see any of this - where do they occur?

    I'm not arguing that the help system is great - I rarely use it but do use information on the Wiki. http://wiki.logos.com/Logos_4_Commands provides more useful information in this context but that's a different debate!

    Graham

     

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    The first had the command I was looking for and when I click on it,  the "next" chevron becomes greyed out.

    What you are calling the "next" chevron is actually a forward arrow. The two arrows are used to go back and forward in your history, and previous and next in your search results (if those arrows existed in help, then they'd be up and down arrows).

    But I agree with your two suggestions (and would like to add a third). The problems, as I see them, are:

    • As you said, The 'available commands' are not hyperlinked to the 'examples', where they should be.
    • There are no up and down arrows to go to the different search results. (This would eliminate the need for CTRL+F)
    • Search results are not highlighted.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

  • Clinton Thomas
    Clinton Thomas Member Posts: 465 ✭✭

    What you are calling the "next" chevron is actually a forward arrow.

    Thanks for clarifying that.

    I did the post from memory and when I noticed the mistake, it was too late to edit the post.

  • Clinton Thomas
    Clinton Thomas Member Posts: 465 ✭✭

    Hi Graham,

    You wrote:

    which I scrolled down to get the information I needed.

    For me this is the problem. On my monitor I see more information, including scan path right at the bottom. See below

    image

    Note that:

     

    1. Nothing is hyperlinked;
    2. (Not shown but) The forward arrow is greyed out.
    3. There is no indication that a restart is needed
    4. There is no indication that there is more information following. In fact the additional information that is included with the two scan commands hints that this is the limit of the help.

    So as a result, I never bothered to scroll further.

     

    My point is that as a user, when I do a search, It should allow me, with one dialogue box the ability to find all the occurances of the term in the results window.

    There should be visible queues that there is more information. The help search only shows the topics, then greys out the next arrow. The control-F method must be used to scroll inside the help file to see if there is more information.  

    Regards,

    Clinton

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 33,288

    Hi Clinton

    Thanks for the clarification

    Graham