Useful link from the Forum page

[kgallen]

Finding stuff like the Online manual is a PITA (it was bad enough before VariLite, now it's... more work than it should be, it's not under Support that I can find, not easily anyway, so then it's dig around under Products...).

Could you add a ZerOS online manual link in the Forum header - the banner with Homepage / Forums / All Activity / ... ZerOS Online Manual.

Or maybe even more generically "Manuals" then we can find stuff for Frog etc quickly too 😉 

Pretty please? 🙂

[Davidmk]

Hear hear!

[Edward Z88]

23 hours ago, kgallen said:

Could you add a ZerOS online manual link in the Forum header - the banner with Homepage / Forums / All Activity / ... ZerOS Online Manual.

Done. Let me know your thoughts on the changes.

[kgallen]

4 hours ago, Edward Z88 said:

Done. Let me know your thoughts on the changes.

For others, on an iPhone it’s in the top right menu (3 lines).

Thanks Edward 🙂

[Davidmk]

Thank you!

 

[kgallen]

Nice videos link... 🙂

[kgallen]

On 5/7/2023 at 5:07 PM, Edward Z88 said:

Done. Let me know your thoughts on the changes.

Edward did you use the FLX colour picker to get the Vari-Lite green for the site? 🤪

[Edward Z88]

12 hours ago, kgallen said:

Edward did you use the FLX colour picker to get the Vari-Lite green for the site? 🤪

Haha that would have been a much more interesting way of doing it! I did it the boring way and looked in our brand guidelines 😆

[Jon Hole]

30 minutes ago, Edward Z88 said:

I did it the boring way and looked in our brand guidelines 😆

You’ve changed…! 🤣

[kgallen]

It's an ok green, but we're sad to see the Zero88 brand being diluted... 😞

[kgallen]

I know, I know, never happy, always moaning...

Pretty Please can we have "Previous" and "Next" page buttons on the Online Manual? It's so tedious to have to keep going back to the menu to get the next page, and doing so on a phone is a real PITA (did I wear that one out already? 😛 ). Buttons top and bottom of the page would be nice 🙏

[Edward Z88]

Hi Kevin,

16 minutes ago, kgallen said:

Pretty Please can we have "Previous" and "Next" page buttons on the Online Manual?

For now, we'll have to say no. The online manuals platform was created by an external web developer, so we would need a business case to reopen this. As mentioned when we initially created the platform, the "Next", "Previous", and "Up" buttons we first implemented were not working how we wanted, so we had to remove them.

If we receive further requests for this, we will of course investigate.

[kgallen]

31 minutes ago, Edward Z88 said:

If we receive further requests for this, we will of course investigate.

😛 OK I'm playing my joker...

I was perusing the ETC ColorSource manual because a BlueRoomer is looking for a console upgrade from an Illusion...

Then I needed to look at the ZerOS manual... 'nuff said.

😁

[Jon Hole]

3 hours ago, kgallen said:

I was perusing the ETC ColorSource manual

This is just a PDF, right? Is the issue actually that we need a better PDF option? As that might be more achievable.

[kgallen]

48 minutes ago, Jon Hole said:

This is just a PDF, right? Is the issue actually that we need a better PDF option? As that might be more achievable.

Hi Jon.

Interesting point. When the ZerOS manual is rendered as a pdf it doesn’t come out that great on the formatting or pagination. Also content wise, it reads more as a ‘reference manual’ than a user manual (I’ve commented this before). It’s all there (when you finally find the right section) but it doesn’t really lead the user through in a ‘friendly, readable way’.

The short pages of the online version are hard work to keep the reading thread going, hence the original request for the P/N buttons. Also the search doesn’t seem to be getting any better at presenting the most likely candidates.

I appreciate Edward and yourself have spent many hours on this, so I do apologise if I’m sounding ungrateful, that’s not the intention.

How do you present the Neo manual?

Regards, Kevin

[Jon Hole]

12 hours ago, kgallen said:

How do you present the Neo manual?

The Neo manual is currently here, but we're not 100% happy with it either: https://neofamily.helpdocs.io/

[Davidmk]

It is a general problem that manuals tend to tell you what "things" do not what "thing" you need at any given time. It is much easier to write them that way and, IMHO, the ZerOS manual is much better than most by this metric.

Knowing what "thing" you want is much harder. How does a writer cover the finite, but huge, array of possibilities without rivalling War And Peace? They can't,  basically, and that is where training steps in. This forum also picks some of it up - how often do replies say "see the manual here"?

I have see very few of the training videos, my brain just doesn't like that input channel very much. So my take would be a separate "how to" guide giving you the workflow to plot a show (including how to add & correct cues) in one chapter, how to set up the desk for busking in another, etc. The history of questions posed on this forum should give an idea of other topics. Flowcharts  could be a big part of it too. An online version could include links to the manual to get the details.

I'm waffling now. I'll leave it there.

[Davidmk]

PS I've been up all night trying to write scripts for TouchOSC. I've been a programmer all my adult life but I've struggled with this. The Hexler manual doesn't help much, it assumes you know Lua. The Lua manual is better but I still don't know how to implement a multi-dimensional array.

Making progress though.

[Jon Hole]

15 hours ago, kgallen said:

Also content wise, it reads more as a ‘reference manual’ than a user manual

2 hours ago, Davidmk said:

So my take would be a separate "how to" guide giving you the workflow

2 hours ago, Davidmk said:

Flowcharts  could be a big part of it too. An online version could include links to the manual

I guess not too dissimilar to what we already have with this page: https://www.zero88.com/manuals/zeros/patching/add-fixtures/missing-fixtures

[Jon Hole]

4 hours ago, Davidmk said:

PS I've been up all night trying to write scripts for TouchOSC.

Let us know how you get on with the integration into ZerOS beta... there will be a new beta soon fixing a few of the pesky OSC bugs. 

[Davidmk]

Yes, pretty much. Start from a problem (or something people want to do) and do a step by step guide.

I still think flowcharts are good. Like "here's the steps" in order, with alternatives then link out to how. Not particularly relevant to your example though.