screenshot instructions

[Karsten Wade]

On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 05:20, Dashamir Hoxha wrote:

> If a consensus cannot be reached, then I think that it should not be
> included in the guide, or should be included like a suggestion, not
> like a rule that everybody has to follow.

Just like in other parts of the Fedora project, coding style and
consistency with the rest of the project is important.

In documentation, absolute consistency can be more important than
determining and following a "right way".  I'd rather have a document
make a mistake consistently, than make three different mistakes about
the sake thing.  Worse is doing the same thing three different ways!

Part of what makes a professional documentation set like the Red Hat
(Enterprise) Linux docs so useful for the reader is this consistency. 
Without it, we might as well be a bunch of random HOWTOS and tutorials.

Sloppy consistency is similar to sloppy instructions.  If you write
instructions that are almost but not quite what the reader sees, they
will doubt the instructions because they don't match what is seen on the
screen.  

In the screenshot instructions, Paul and I went to pains to make sure
that what we describe on the screen for the GIMP is exactly what you
see.  Such accuracy and consistency inspires confidence.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, Tech Writer
a lemon is just a melon in disguise
http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
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