Yesterday, I started working on the help file using Dr. Explain which is a software for making help files. I’ve mentioned this product in a previous post but this time I want to mention a bit more about it.

The great thing about it is that it comes with a sample file which you can use as a template. The sample file is for the TBS Cover Editor software product. You can open the file within Dr. Explain and find out how it all works and hangs together.

As I’ve mentioned previously the main selling point of the product (at least for me) was its ability to parse a screenshot into its invidual components and automatically assign bulleted lines to them. There is no need to use all the components. Actually, you can delete the ones you do not need and Dr. Explain takes care of the renumbering.

Another thing that I found useful was that you can add a screenshot taken with another screen capture software. I do not have any problem with the screenshot images it creates except that I need to resize some of them. Dr. Explain has an image resize option but what I want to do is to resize the screenshot and enhance it at the same time. Dr. Explain cannot enhance an image. I use FastStone Capture as my image capture utility (works great and has its own editor) and IrfanView to resize and enhance my images.

After adding the screenshot you can add a new control (this is just an area you specify which Dr. Explain will treat as a control of the current screenshot). You can change the name of the control as well as adjust the bullet mark’s location and distance from the image. For every control you add you are presented with its own text area where you can write something about the control you added. The image below can best illustrate what I mean:

The other reason why I am using FastStone Capture as my screen capture utility is because you can edit the image and add some text highlights (see above image) as well as have a torn-paper effect on the side of the screenshot. Having this effect is handy when I want show only a portion of the screen. It’s not much but I find it useful. See the following image:

While you are in the middle of writing the contents you can simply click on the HTML Preview or CHM Page Preview button to quickly have an idea how the page looks like once it is exported to one of these formats.

Once I got the hang of adding windows, inserting existing screenshots, creating bullet marks the whole exercise of writing the help file became easier. I think I’ll get the help file done faster than I initially thought. Thanks to Dr. Explain.

I’m using Delphi 7 to develop misvCRM and I came across a tip the other day on how to make the IDE (integrated development environment) assume the XP theme. Making the IDE themed does not really add anything to the development effort but it is sometimes nice to have a bit of a change. Here are two screenshots of the options dialog box showing how it looks like before the application of the theme and after.

Before:

After:

Comparing the two images you can see that the one with the theme applied looks a bit more ‘modern’.  To implement the theme all you have to do is:

• Get hold of an XP manifest file. The format of the name is usually of the form xxxx.exe.manifest.
• Rename the manifest file to delphi32.exe.manifest.
• Copy the manifest file to the bin folder of Delphi 7.
• Restart Delphi 7.

If you do not want to do the first two steps you can download a copy of the delphi32.exe.manifest file from here.

Now I wonder how my Delphi 7 IDE would look like if I implement a Vista theme? I might just try it. Till next time.

Day 40 and I am still in the midst of getting misvCRM ready for the end of the month release. As I took it through its paces i.e. making sure that it does what it is supposed to do I keep discovering little things that are in themselves possibly trivial but in the bigger scheme of things affect the overall quality of the product. Some of these little things are under the hood so to speak and therefore not really obvious to the user. Some examples are making sure that the different buttons in the list page behave accordingly i.e. when there are no records displayed only the Add button must be enabled etc.; making sure that the tab order follows a logical order. I’ve come across software where the tab order is random at best which turns me off a bit.

The other major change that I did during these past days is to develop additional modules relating to making misvCRM multi-user. I did not want to do this during the first 30 days and still did not want to do it until after the first release but I had a long think and finally decided to do it now. What made me decide is the amount of work needed in both the code and database tables in order to make it multi user. If I did this change after misvCRM is released I will end up working with two different versions since I obviously do not want to break the code for the released version. At least now, everything is in place and both single-user and multi-user capabilities are in a single codebase and all I have to do is to indicate in the licence key which capability needs to be active.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is I came across a document from Microsoft entitled UX Guide - User Experience Guidelines which you can download from here. This document specifically refers to designing user interfaces for the Vista operating system but the concepts can be applied to other operating systems as well. It is a treasure trove of tips and hints and I’m glad that I came across it. There is a section called How To Design a Great User Experience. There are eighteen points (18) which describe ways and means how to make an application great. Some are obvious and the others are not. Some of the points are as follows:

1. Nail the basics. It means that one should not lose site why you want people to use your software. Focus on the core functionality and leave the bells and whistles for later. I know it is always tempting to add one more little “nice” feature here and there which sometimes the users will not really use at all.
2. Make the experience like a friendly conversation. I find this point a new way at looking at the user interface. Basically, all it is suggesting is that the UI must be easy and pleasant to use requiring the least amount of work from the user. The UI must guide the user to the usage of your program rather than being a hindrance.
3. Keep it simple. One thing I really like about this point is when it mentions “don’t have three ways to do something when one will do”. I suppose this makes more sense from the user’s point of view. It possibly minimizes the possibility of getting confused or something like that.

I suggest that you download the document and have a read through. The message that I get is that make the application or program user centric where all the elements of the application are geared towards making sure that the user uses the application to solve a problem which is the main reason why he or she has your software in the first place. That’s all for now, hopefully next time I can share something more related to misvCRM.

A lot of software developers are very good at cutting code, setting up automated builds, managing version control, automated testing, etc. but when it comes to working with or preparing the documentation in general and the help file in particular there is much to be desired. My take on this is that preparing the help file is tedious or difficult because it is usually prepared at the end of the development process. I think the help file should be prepared in almost a parallel path as the development process so much so that it should also be added to the files managed by a version control system.

With the end of the 30-day challenge in sight and products almost ready to go out the door statements like “still have to write the help file…” or “help file still needs to be written” are starting to get mentioned. I am also in the same boat but I think I found a very good application that can make the writing of the help file a breeze. I am talking about the product called Dr. Explain. What impressed me most about it is that it can parse a screenshot into its individual controls and automatically create callouts for each of them. See the image below:

I think in the preparation of help files the most dofficult part is the preparation of the images that you want to include since images can convey a lot of information faster compared to pure text. With the screenshot editor of Dr. Explain this task becomes very easy. You can remove some of the callouts if you feel you do not need them. Also, each of these callouts has a link in the help page where you can type the appropriate text.

The help file can be exported in a variety of formats e.g. CHM, HTML, and RTF. The generated HTML help can be customised to appear as part of your website. This means that you can have a link to the help file in your site. I haven’t really gone deep into it but I shall talk more about it when I have. I just wanted to tell my fellow 30-dayers about this product.

As you well know, I’ve now made available for download an early pre-release version of misvCRM. Earlier today, I received an email from someone who had downloaded a copy. The email was quite long filling two (2) pages when printed. The email contained a lot of very good suggestions on how to make misvCRM more usable and attractive to those who are looking for such an application. The sender is a software developer herself and she has developed a business management software for artists (http://www.artaffairsoftware.com).

I’m going to implement most of her suggestions before the thirty days are up since I have most of the hooks in place and it will not eat much into the remaining days.

While I am at it I would like to list some of the third-party tools that I am using, excluding my main development tool which is Delphi.

EMS SQL Manager Lite for Interbase/Firebird - is a powerful tool for InterBase/Firebird administration and development. It provides an easy-to-use graphical interface for maintaining databases and database objects, managing table data, building SQL queries, administering users and their privileges, extracting, printing, and searching metadata, etc. The lite version is free.

FlameRobin - is an open-source application that basically does what EMS SQL Manager does except with a less flashy GUI. The reason I use it is because there are times that I only need to have a quick look at the database or the existing data and using EMS SQL Manager is a bit of an overkill.

Advanced Data Generator - I came across this a couple of days ago and it is a great application for generating data for database applications. It enables you to define the type of data that needs to be generated for each field of your database tables. It is even possible to specify real-life looking data e.g. first names, last names, company names etc. If you want to load test your application using a data generator is a must. You can download the trial version.