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> Most screens are a list of items (they collapse to one
> summary line, or expand to show a lot more detail) that are almost
full-screen width;
> therefore, they're wider than the Help window. I don't want to cause
> horizontal scrolling. Should I take screenshots of the entire
> width of an item listing and shrink them to fit, making the text almost
> illegible but giving a general idea of the layout? Or should I take
screenshots of
> sections that are less than full width but can be used
> full-size? The detail view doesn't divide really cleanly but it's
possible.
- Is this a Web-based application? Can you resize the browser window of the
application first, and then take screenshots? Let the applicaiton
re-paginate itself as necessary and then take your shots.
- I'm not convinced that shrinking images (even with text) necessarily makes
them illegible. Shrink them far enough, yes, but you ought to be able to
shrink them to some degree and maintain legibility. Note that various
programs resize images better than others. For example, Microsoft Photo
Editor does a very poor job of resizing, but the ReSize tool within RoboHelp
does it quite nicely. Try a few products and see.
- Another suggestion: make your help system full-screen and use a mock-up of
the application with hotspots that link to help topics or popups. So
essentially the user would be using the app UI to learn how to use the UI
itself. Your version of the UI (taken just as a screenshot of the app)
would ONLY display help when the various areas are clicked.
- Try chunking it up. If you show _only_ the lists, and not the rest of the
UI of the app, are they easier to fit in?
-Chris Grant
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