ITauthor

I was using a horrible application called QMAP today. It’s a program for drawing “process maps” – that is, flow charts representing a process. In my case I was editing some diagrams of our documentation processes. But please, next time, give me Visio. Please!

Think Visio is clumsy and annoying to use? Try using QMAP!

Anyhow, I had linked one diagram to another diagram as a child process, but then changed my mind and wanted to remove the link. I selected the little box that (intuitively? I think not) represents a linked diagram, and I pressed the delete key. The following message was displayed.

Now, of course, with hindsight, I should have taken my time, read the message over several times, considered its implications, thought long and hard about what I should do next and then, and only then, proceeded cautiously. Maybe I’m just too used to software that works sensibly.

Did I want to store CHILD GROUP “2” (as it so nicely called the diagram I’d actually named “Review Process”) inside the trashcan? Well, no, I did not want to store it inside the trashcan, I just wanted to remove the link on this diagram. So the answer was no. Right?

So I clicked No. Big mistake!

What this dialog box was really asking me was: “Do you want to delete this diagram?” But for some reason, the developer had kindly thought to include within this dialog box the option to delete the diagram irrevocably, without placing it in the Recycle Bin, and without bothering to offer me an “Are you sure you want to delete this?” opportunity to change my mind. One false click and a couple of hours’ work vanished into thin air.

So let’s consider some of the things that are wrong here:

a) The word “delete” is never mentioned.

b) Instead it refers to the normal deletion operation that we all know and love as “storing inside the trashcan” (“inside” mind you – not “in” or “on” or “underneath” or “nearby”, but “inside”).

b) It uses some weird nomenclature to refer to a diagram I’d already named, so it’s not clear what I’m about to “store” (or not).

c) By answering “No” to this question I am just saying I don’t want to do the thing it has offered: to store something inside the trashcan. I am not saying anything more than that. I’m just saying “No – don’t do that.” However, the software assumes that because I don’t want to do the thing it’s offered to do, I obviously do want to do this other thing: the thing it hasn’t actually mentioned, namely delete my work instantly and forever.

d) The dialog box also has two other buttons: “No to All” and “Yes to All”. However, I’d only selected one thing, so what were these “all” things. All what?

This is just the tiny, but ghastly, tip of the enormous iceberg of horrors that is QMAP usability (or lack of).

I can only hope you never encounter this application.

I’ve added a Google Friend Connect widget to the sidebar of this site. The idea is that if you read this blog you might like to add yourself as a “member” and then other people can see who visits this site and, depending on what you choose to put in your profile, can find out a little bit about you, check out your blog, join your twitter feed, read your shared Google Reader items, have a look at your Flickr photos or your YouTube videos, etc. Yes, it’s another social networking thing.

At the moment I’ve called this item “Friends of ITauthor”. But right now I’m the only one on it, which looks very sad. So please click the Join this site button in the sidebar and add yourself.

ITauthor needs a few more friends than just me!

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There's a periodic problem with creating PDFs where the application you’re using to create the PDF (e.g. Word or FrameMaker) crashes or, worse, it completes, seemingly successfully, but the resulting PDF has chunks missing from it.

The example Microsoft gives is a document with three sections in it but the PDF that you generate ends up containing Section 1 followed by Section 3.

You might have encountered this problem if you’re a FrameMaker user and assumed it was an Adobe issue. It wasn’t, it was a Windows issue.

Here's the hotfix:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=952909

Tom Johnson has rejigged the Writer River site again to use a service called Publish2. This site is really just another link aggregation site but it has some features that make it really useful. The great thing about it is the bookmarklet that adds a sidebar to whatever Web page you’re reading. From this sidebar you can add an item to your personal list of page links, stored by Publish2.

The other things you can do with the sidebar are:

• Add the link to any of the newsgroups you belong to.
  Tom has set up a “Technical Communication” newsgroup and it’s the links that get added to this newsgroup that appear on Writer River. This is great because it means you can have your own personal list and then, from that, choose who you share particular links with.
• Send a tweet about the page.
  Rather than going to your twitter client and tweeting about this separately – just write your tweet in the sidebar.
• Publish the link to your blog or to delicious.
  The sidebar has WordPress and delicious integration. In my case, I want to have my own “What I’m Reading” list in my WordPress blog. So I have a “What I’m Reading” category already set up and I have Publish2 set to select this as the default category. The good thing about this is that if Publish2 disappeared tomorrow I wouldn’t lose all my “What I’m Reading” links they way I would if I was just adding details dynamically to my site by pulling in information from the RSS feed for my list at Publish2. There is a Publish2 JavaScript widget that you can add to any Web page to pull information down from Publish2 if you want to do it that way. But by actually posting to my blog from the sidebar it means that data is saved to my WordPress database as well as to Publish2’s database.
  

So here’s how I add things to my “What I’m Reading” list. Note: the way I used to populate this list is described in this post – but it was massively complicated compared to this method.

1. When I've read a page I think other tech writers might be interested in I just go to my Bookmarks list, click the Publish2 link and fill out the sidebar form that's displayed.
2. I type in a description of what I like about the page in the Public Comments box.
3. I select the check box for the Technical Communication newsgroup.
4. The check box for twitter is selected by default - I just add some tweet text.
5. In the Also add this link to section I select the check box for ITauthor.com.  My What I'm Reading category is already selected - I just have to copy some text from the Public Comments box and that becomes a link to the article in the resulting blog post.
6. I click Save and I'm done.
   
   My blog's updated with a new post, Writer River also gets a new link entry and a tweet gets sent out to my twitter followers.
   
   Quick, easy and kills three birds with one stone. Brilliant!

Thanks to my colleague Jim for sharing this via Facebook.

Brian Eno has created an ambient music application for the iPhone. The blurb at http://generativemusic.com/ says:

Developed by ambient pioneer Brian Eno and musician/software designer Peter Chilvers, Bloom explores uncharted territory in the realm of applications for the iPhone and iPod touch. Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.

Fortunately, for those of us without iPhones, there’s a Flash version of it for the PC. Go to this URL, turn on your speakers and click around:

http://www.nuigroup.com/bloom/bloom.swf