Final Cut Studio (2009): Frakking Documentation...

It's okay that Apple decided not to include printed manuals with the new version of FCS, but they don't even include PDF versions with the installation (or on Apple's website, as least not yet).

The documentation comes in HTML only.

The problem with the HTML only version is that there are no page numbers, or an index, with which one can refer to, especially when trying to tell someone else where to go when you give them the "RTFM" spiel... ;-)

Another problem with the HTML docs is that it is difficult to print out several pages at a time. One of the reasons for this is that there are disclosure triangles that hide portions of content in many sections. Also, the docs being HTML, everything is separated into small chunks, making it impossible to select a range of content to print (or what would have been an entire section or chapter in the previous PDF versions of docs).

And, for me, on a newish Mac Pro (just the system, Apple's "i" apps and FCS only), the new docs come up and respond very slowly in the Apple Help system, which is still a dog, especially with the new FCS doc pages (there was a problem in trying to select and access some of the KnowledgeBase articles listed at the bottom of search results, as well). As a comparison, when I opened the docs directly in Safari, or even accessing them from Apple's website, the responsiveness of the docs was much, much better.

(And, yes, I will be forwarding this info to Apple via their feedback facilities.)

Oh well... ;-)


-Dave

P.S. - I just hope this doesn't portend to a degradation in the quality of the overall documentation. Apple's FCS docs have been some of the best around, and even include a lot of general information not normally found in user manuals...

Could not agree with you more Dave.

It's really poorly thought out, and reading it is an exercise in frustration. I know Apple did surveys about paper and electronic manual, and I voted for electronic, as I'm guessing did many others, but not this.

This is really unfortunate and as a trainer extremely difficult to work with. As you said it is now very much more difficult to direct someone to a specific location in the manual. To locate anything you have to give this really long URL.

Of course it's easy to update and change. Downside is you never know when that happens. So you never know when information you link to becomes obsolete or simply disappears or is replaced with other information. PDFs can be updated pretty much as easily and be distributed by download as needed, but the ephemeral nature of the Internet is not a good thing for this.

I had thought that something was wrong with my browser as normally it would download PDFs to my desktop. It wasn't until a few tries did I discover that this manual was HTML. Not a good idea at all.

Michael Horton
-------------------

I also think that this change is a big step in the wrong direction.

Not being able to tell customers "look at page x to y in the manual" is more than bad.

The pages handled as HTML pages instead of PDF pages is a nightmare as you can't use 'page up", 'page down' but to have click to step backwards/forward - no scroll wheel any more. Even worse that they split up 'continues' pages into single pages - so no more fun when reading.

Also having no immediate response (with parts of the context displayed) when typing in a key word is at least a triple-grrr.

The options for printing are also ridiculous.

Andreas

P.S. Maybe we should start a petition.

I'm considering compiling my own PDF. Not sure How it's going to turn out, but it might be the only way to do it.

Tom,

Let us know how it turned out.

Andreas

It should be OK. I'll be able to fiddle the chaptering and sections a bit better I hope. I won' be able to distribute it of course.

Tom,

How would you do that conversion?

Andreas

Let me add another vote to bomb this HTML implementation. I surfed there expecting a hotwired PDF download. Where the hell is that?

On the Miller scale-

WTO - well thought out
BTO - barely thought out
NTO - not thought out

this rates an abject NTO.

Look forward to Tom's PDF. Actually, Tom, if you collect all the page data I'll volunteer to hotwire the table of contents to chapter titles and any cross refs within a page. I don't however have an indexing tool (or time.) Then we give it to the FCP team to review and bless and put it on the website.

Whoever was working in Docs should have flagged this! Or yelled louder.

Considering this "open source" project workflow reflects the very core of MacOSX, it's not such a strange idea, is it?

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:

Nudge a Canvas layer by subpixel with Command-Option-Arrows !

Final Cut Studio 2 KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

The problem is that even if Tom succeeds to convert the 1937 pages to PDF and even if anybody succeeds to index there is no permission from Apple to publish that. As this is copyrighted material you would need that.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

It seems strange that you'd change from something that works, like pdf, to something else that is fraught with issues. Apple have a very good pdf reader in "preview" too. Boggles the mind...

Graeme

After battling the stupid documentation I figured I'd come here to post about the experience and I see this thread. Last night I was wondering why no one else was venting.

I figured maybe I had to download the PDF from Apple's site and it's not there either.

HTML and impossible to search!
I was searching about using the color-coded tabs. It's not under Tabs and searching tabs or color-coded or color coded didn't point to anything as far as I could tell. DUMB search!. I want to see pages with highlighted words and such list as one would see in a PDF.

And I have to open FCP or go to Apple's site to read anything.

This is like the worst of HTML documentation thrown back 10 years!
I can't believe Apple was this deliberate and stupid. It's unfathomable that they would think this was even close to a workable solution.

As said, let's do a petition.

Most of the people here are active on other lists as well and can start it there. Even start that on the Apple discussion forums.
Apple is always monitoring and maybe we get back what was there already.

My 2 cents (in Euro)
Andreas

P.S.
I will start right now on a german speaking FC list.

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Typical Apple. Trying to be oh-so-"modern" -- let's forget the PDF manuals, everybody has online access now! Just taking more options away from the user, yet again, as in iTunes, Safari and so many other applications.

Put the damn PDF back!

Until then, we'd have to figure out a way to convert the thing ourselves.


www.derekmok.com

I just sent my complaint via Feedback link in FCP.
As an aside the form itself stops as QT 7.4.5 and doesn't have the stock ATI Radeon 2600 in many Mac Pros.

If you read the small printed
Final Cut Studio
Installing Your Software
on page 22

Quote

The Final Cut Studio installer automatically configures Spotlight to index the Final Cut Studio PDF documents . . .

So something is really amiss here as PDF is mentioned a few times.

I'd think someone (i.e. not me) could write a simple Apple Script to compile the HTML help files back into PDF and distribute that though... I can almost guarantee that will get results a lot quicker than trying to online petition Apple for it.

Noah

Final Cut Studio Training, featuring the HVX200, EX1, EX3, DVX100, DVDSP and Color at [www.callboxlive.com]!
Author, RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera available now at: [www.amazon.com].
Editors Store- Gifts and Gear for Editors: [www.editorsstore.com]

Hey...quit complaining...at least the HTML docs are not written in Hindi (the native language of Apple Tech Support)

Seriously...really really really REALLY bad choice for help docs Apple. What were you thinking?! Do we now have to WASTE a FEATURE REQUEST to get back a decent HELP feature?!?!?!?!

This is me...clicking on "FEATURE REQUESTS"...please do the same...someone reads this stuff I think...

[www.lafcpug.org]

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Quote
grafixjoe
Hey...quit complaining...at least the HTML docs are not written in Hindi (the native language of Apple Tech Support)

I'm sure native Hindi writers are capable of making PDFs. I think translating a Hindi PDF to English would be easier and more useful than the HTML documentation.

That was a poor attempt at a joke craig (notice the rolling eyes smilie and the "seriously" that begins the next paragraph). Jeez

If you want to get TECHNICAL, THIS is India...where you call for Applecare TECHNICAL SUPPORT for your Mac:



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Not having printed manuals is bad enough (no need to kill trees, just give me 100% recylcled paper). Not having pdf manuals is ignoring the user's needs. There are plenty of situations where an editor doesn't have internet access, like on location, on a studio set, at a school, in a hotel room, etc.

But aside from that, I think that especially with a new release not having a pdf manual on board makes no sense at all. Simple enough to fix in an FCP 7.0.1 update.



Clay

Craig I'm really with you

Anyway, I've started something here in Germany with our German FCP forum.
People are called to think about the new manual, and if they're not happy with it they should use the "Feedback Link".
The German site is [www.final-cut-pro.de]

Think about all the trainers and authors and all the guys here and any other forum about FCP referring to the manual - they will have hard time, give them some a chance ;-)

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Yup, I'm with you fellas. I don't think I ever referred to the paper manuals for Final Cut 6, but the PDF was great. If it's absent from FCP 7, that's a pity.

But it might not be as simple to add PDF manuals to the software as y'all think. The PDFs we got with FCP 6 were just electronic copies of the same source files (presumably FrameMaker documents) that were used to generate the printed manuals. If Apple has moved away from that documentation system to one that generates electronic FCP 7-style documentation only, then they might not even have the option of distributing PDFs.

Which would be a shame.

I know you were only kidding. So was my response more or less.

Hey, at lease I can SEE the tangled mess in your pic. I can see the tangled mess in the HTML. There are things I just can't find.

If anyone finds where the info is about colored tabs please send me the page number . . . oh you can't . . . um I guess you'll have to talk me through to were you found it.

So then maybe they'll make a version of the manuals as an iPhone App?

If you enter this address into Safari

[documentation.apple.com]

you'll download 'chapters.json' which lists the names of the chapters and how many sub-sections they have. Here is a sample:

{
"chapter_title" : "Appendix E: Working with Anamorphic 16:9 Media",
"index" : "120",
"submenu" : false,
"chapter" : "E",
"children" : 14
},


When browsing the online version normally, you'll also see addresses such as

[documentation.apple.com]

If you attempt to view the HTML source, only the page loading code will appear.


If you turn off Javascript and modify the address slightly, you get access to an HTML version of the page:

[documentation.apple.com]


The problem with the HTML version is that it defaults to hiding all the task sections, such as 'To export a 16:9 anamorphic sequence to a 16:9 anamorphic MPEG-2 file' - the code to support the clicking of the heading and the blue arrow next to it is found in

[documentation.apple.com]

It makes the task section (class="TaskContentBox" visible or invisible using the '.style.display' Javascript property.

Hope this helps someone who wants to write an Applescript to de-Javascript the help system...

@alex4d

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

And this whole drop down arrows and forward back arrows and pages with a single paragraph.
It's impossible to see things laid out before you.

It damn near reminds of those old Infcom text games from the 1980s.
Type in the question
The answer itself may be a riddle.
Maybe like Myst because you have to click on something to find out what it is.

I couldn't find it craig...which pi$$es me off. What kind of HELP is this for an Upgrade??? Apple should call this the HELPLESS DOCS. Stupid. They will probably create an iPhone version and sell it in the App Store for $9.99....



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Alex

My head just exploded.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Alex,

These where good hints. I found out some of theme as well.

I maybe able to write an AppleScript to convert - but as I said before this is all copyright stuff and I probably will walk on thin ice if I would do it.
And there won't be indexing if you just convert HTML straight to PDF.

I've found a pretty good app which seems to work pretty well with complex HTML/JAVA/CSS documents to PDF and it's only 2400 USD plus a 300 USD per year update.

So here we go.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

So this is just to make sure someone couldn't bootleg the manual (we know there's such a hot market for them) nor try on their own to convert to PDF.

Rarely would I be so harsh as to think someone should be fired but doing this is a real "heads should role" IMHO.

Whoever did this is less the clueless about the professional target market. This isn't a consumer product with an 80 page manual. I've never seen such an utterly dumb move by Apple (heck at least you could buy a third party mouse to replace those round ones). They've made controversial moves before but this is thoughtlessly dumb.