Re: paper vs online

Subject: Re: paper vs online
From: Dave Kosiur <doc -at- INTERCON -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 11:16:22 -0500

> So when do we get on-line documentation that'll allow individual users
> to leave keyword-named bookmarks for which they can later search?
> and comments for which they can later search?
> If users could _annotate_ the on-line doc, they'd use it much
> more . . . and it'd then repay the costs of producing it.

I've often thought the same thing. One product that may prove useful, at
least for Macs, is Voyager's Expanded Book Toolkit. You can put text,
graphics, QuickTime movies and sound into an electronic "book", and users are
allowed to mark pages and make marginal notes. It also has a built-in search
facility.

The one drawback is that it's based on HyperCard and therefore can be a
memory hog and run slowly. Perhaps the new HyperCard Player and associated
developer's kit (which makes standalone apps) will resolve this issue.

An advantage that has yet to be exploited is that, by running via HyperCard,
the Expanded Book can receive and process AppleEvents under System 7. If you
can convince your application programmer to add some AppleEvents support to
your product, then you could have context-sensitive help which opens the
Expanded Book-based help system and allows the user to add remarks, mark
pages, or search for some other, related term.

Now, if someone would only try doing this ... ;-)

dave k.


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