Have a decent User Guide for Studio & API
Instead of the bundle of outdated Forum advice (dating back to 4 years and 3 major version ago(!)), outdated Blog posts ("Best practices" referring to 2 versions ago (!)) and minimalistic online User Guide, let's have
-> an offline,
-> complete (EVERY dropdown-menu-item),
-> version-aware (let's not read text to get informed at the end that the new version does this differntly),
-> searchable (not have the info on "cool Studio feature" be hidden under "clstdftr" in the API description),
-> possibly even Tool-Tippy,
DECENT MANUAL
loonquawl
shared this idea
Thank you for your input.
We know that our documentation is far from perfect. A better API documentation is the highest-voted feature here in the user voice.
On the other hand, we have released our new user guide several months ago. The new guide is far more detailed than the old one, and we have started to provide more material than ever before.
A possible next step could be an offline version (export) of the user guide. Would this be interesting for you, or are there more pressing topics in our documentation?
We would appreciate some input.
Best Regards,
The Ranorex Studio Product Management Team
6 comments
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Anonymous
commented
btw. please compare the content of the Guide entry for 'turbo mode' with the Forum answer (by your support staff) - providing the information on Forum is still valid (it is from 2014), i much prefer it - it is less verbose, but much more detailed.
FORUM: https://www.ranorex.com/forum/turbo-mode-not-sure-what-it-overrides-t6450.html
GUIDE: https://www.ranorex.com/help/latest/ranorex-studio-fundamentals/ranorex-recorder/run-debug-recordings/ -
Anonymous
commented
The other comment was only aimed at the Studio Guide, the API resource doesn't seem changed, so all criticism still applies : Only online, no examples, weird format.
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Anonymous
commented
Thank you for your interest.
About the new User Guide: I found it, after googling (looked for it under 'Resources'). . Regarding my above recommendations:
- I'd like it offline, it is not, and it is too much hassle to have a bot pull it offline.
- I could not check whether it is complete (see later point on searchability) but i highly doubt it
- It IS version aware ... as in: it is current. as it is also very new, this will only be seen in time. as long as you have processes in place to change the Guide according to the latest changes, all will be well.
- it is not searchable as such. There is the 'search Ranorex'-button, but you have to know that you can later filter your results; also, the Guide-results do not get the excerpt-treatment that Forum-results get (some sentences from the result, with the search-word in bold) so they look like they do not belong (try with 'turbo mode': First hit is from Guide, but it does not show that it actually leads to something interesting; all the other links lead to Forum.
- Tool Tips are still improvable (Mouseover of the sliders-icon on top of Studio: Tool tip: "Settings", no indication that those are the settings of the Project, not for instance the StudioTo sum up: my above feature request remains. An offline-browsable (pdf? please no App) version would go a long way (because it would improve the search function and provide one with a sense of size (i have now read for three hours - how far have i progressed in the document?). The version awareness will need to be proven over the next few releases.
Cheers!
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SC
commented
Agreed, I would like to see help file more like that used in AutoIT language.
Examples,Examples,Examples....
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Arnold
commented
This is extremely important.
The current documentation resources are either out of date or require extreme effort to find.
E.g. forum is too difficult to search in a short amount of time, and Ranorex's help site search results are too generic, too basic, too tutorial, and never get to the detail.
Even Ranorex's support engineers can't find the information and have to go their devs.
This is expected with open source software, but not commercial software.
Luckily Ranorex customers have support from an excellent staff of support engineers.
I see needing their support often in the future. -
Pavel Kudrys
commented
I agree with offline version of the user guide. It's a must! I understand that the online guide could be regularly updated. But this could be done with some kind of "online update" mechanism built in Ranorex Studio too.
Also, API documentation really needs a better format, with real-world examples, ideally for each method. AutoIt documentation is a great example of API user guide!