Bookends has a detailed user guide, and support questions are always answered quickly. Now we have these forums, with Jon seemingly ever-present, which means that it's easier to ask questions while benefiting people other than oneself.
For novices like me, however, it can be difficult to know where to look in the manual. (Actually, I feel I was a novice until a couple of weeks ago, when a flurry of questions and help from Jon brought me to "lower intermediate" level!). Also, when your knowledge level is low it can be difficult to know how to ask your question, not to mention feeling hesitant to ask too many. So I'm thinking things could profitably be beefed up even more. And, anticipating problems when the forums become better known and busier, I think that it would probably be best to do it so that long term our dependence on Jon and other official Sonny support could be reduced.
So here are a few ideas that occur to me as I write, based on my experiences with other software.
1. A Bookends FAQ. This could be another forum or a PDF or something. Ideally, though, I think a wiki would be best because we users could add questions (together with the answers if we know them), other users could improve the answers, and someone from Sonny could easily rearrange the list if it became unmanageably long. In general, people could be encouraged to go to the wiki as soon as they've had a question answered to their satisfaction in the forums and contribute their newfound knowledge to future users. (I volunteer to go through the forum to extract questions and answers and get the wiki started if this option is adopted.)
2. Bookends Tips. Reference management software isn't mainstream enough to be featured in computer magazines' "101 Tips to Streamline Your Computing Life" features. But for people who use it, tips could be invaluable. Again, this could be another forum, or downloadable PDFs, or a set of wiki pages (or a set of wiki pages to be turned into downloadable PDFs).
3. Quickstart Guide. A PDF to be included on the download page for people who find the User Guide daunting. This could include some of the top tips from (2), and some of the FAQs from (1), and prominent pointers to these forums and any other online resources.
4. Mini-tutorials. Each tutorial could be a web page with a series of annotated screenshots, or I guess some QuickTime movies created in Keynote would be another possibility. This might be overkill, but I thought I might as well mention it now that I'm in the groove.
5. Rework the user guide slightly. The example that occurs to me is the Reference Type section on p.22. Since the names of Bookends fields don't change depending on reference type, I think it really needs to be spelled out in the user guide what information is expected and where it should go for each type. This will involve repeating some of the information in the Reference Fields section, and I don't think that's a problem.
Do any of these seem to be viable options for the future?
Rick
Suggestions for improving Bookends support
Rick,
These are all good ideas.
A few have been implemented already. For example, there is a tutorial that comes with Bookends, which should provide enough to get the novice up and running.
The Read Me also is a mini-FAQ (but far from complete).
I have thought of providing a stand-alone FAQ, which I may end up doing.
Tips, etc., from users to each other is one reason for this forum. Of course the forum is young and a critical mass hasn't been achieved yet (which is why I end up replying to most posts), but it is growing.
As for the final comment about Types, this will be made moot in upcoming versions.
Jon
Sonny Software
These are all good ideas.
A few have been implemented already. For example, there is a tutorial that comes with Bookends, which should provide enough to get the novice up and running.
The Read Me also is a mini-FAQ (but far from complete).
I have thought of providing a stand-alone FAQ, which I may end up doing.
Tips, etc., from users to each other is one reason for this forum. Of course the forum is young and a critical mass hasn't been achieved yet (which is why I end up replying to most posts), but it is growing.
As for the final comment about Types, this will be made moot in upcoming versions.
Jon
Sonny Software
I'd forgotten all about that! I still think a growing collection of things available from a central location on your website is a desirable thing long term.Jon wrote: there is a tutorial that comes with Bookends, which should provide enough to get the novice up and running.
Sounds exciting!As for the final comment about Types, this will be made moot in upcoming versions.
Rick