| Author |
Message
|
| RogerLacroix |
 Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:02 am Post subject: RFE for WMQ manuals in PDF format |
 |
|
Jedi Knight
Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 3264
Location: London, ON Canada
|
All,
I have created an RFE called "Create PDFs for WebSphere MQ manuals". The RFE ID # is 21041. Please vote for it, so that IBM will create/generate WebSphere MQ in PDF format.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rfe/execute?use_case=viewRfe&CR_ID=21041
To vote, locate the “RFE Actions” section on the right hand side of the screen and click the vote link. You can only vote once, so we need everyone to vote to get IBM’s attention.
Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.
_________________
Capitalware: Transforming tomorrow into today.
Connected to MQ!
Twitter |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
| RogerLacroix |
| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
Jedi Knight
Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 3264
Location: London, ON Canada
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| RogerLacroix |
| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
Jedi Knight
Joined: 15 May 2001
Posts: 3264
Location: London, ON Canada
|
All,
I posted the following on the MQ ListServer yesterday, here it is in case you do not subscribe to the MQ ListServer:
There must be certain people within IBM's publishing department that "want to walk on their own path".
For us old timers (good lord, I can't believe I referenced myself that way), I remember BookManager. What a terrible product. It had a horrible interface, the search was weird and had a mind of its own and was just slow. When IBM made the manuals available as PDFs, I immediately stopped using BookManager.
InfoCenter is like version 2 of BookManager. InfoCenter is a definite improvement over BookManager but what is with IBM's fascination with creating their own product to display product documentation in? I just don't get it other than somebody wanting to march to their own drum beat.
History. If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.
Food for thought.
Regards,
Roger Lacroix
Capitalware Inc.
_________________
Capitalware: Transforming tomorrow into today.
Connected to MQ!
Twitter |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| bruce2359 |
| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 8:47 am Post subject: |
|
|
Poobah
Joined: 05 Jan 2008
Posts: 9469
Location: US: west coast, almost. Otherwise, enroute.
|
When I read about WMQ, I want to read a narrative. .pdf manuals provide this narrative. When I want to discover exactly (?) how to specify some value, the InfoCenter seems a more likely resource.
Imagine if Hemingway's classic "The old man and the sea" were delivered InfoCenter style. There would be a webpage with 100 words or less describing the fish, another page describing Santiago, and lots of individual pages chronicling individual episodes. Lost would be the 'big picture.'
_________________
I like deadlines. I like to wave as they pass by.
ב''ה
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi. As we Worship, So we Believe, So we Live. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| fjb_saper |
| Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 9:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Grand High Poobah
Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 20756
Location: LI,NY
|
Roger and Bruce, I get you both...
However remember that it is difficult to satisfy both an "up to date documentation" and the pdf format, as you would have to update and consistently download the full file... The infocenter allows you to just replace the corresponding page.
(Remember not so long ago  when the documentation came as a binder and the updates asked you to replace specific pages in the binder?)
A "middle of the road" way would be to make a pdf version available, with updates once a year and disclaimer about timely updates...
If you want up to date documentation go to the infocenter...
And yes searching the infocenter may have its challenges, but I still usually find what I am looking for there...
Now if you want a narrative and or tutorial, you should look towards the red books and I believe there are a few excellent ones on WMQ and WMB. And guess what? those are still in pdf format!
Have fun 
_________________
MQ & Broker admin |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| mvic |
| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 2:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Jedi
Joined: 09 Mar 2004
Posts: 2080
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| mqjeff |
| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 3:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Grand Master
Joined: 25 Jun 2008
Posts: 17447
|
Except that it requires a full blown Eclipse runtime install, even if it is just an rcp framework. So you can't, for example, copy it to your iPad and use that from an airplane that has no wireless.
And at least on windows, it will *always* open IE as the browser for the first page at startup, and there are no ways to configure this to open the System Browser. I mean, sure, you can close this and reopen the URL in a decent browser. But that doesn't keep you from being annoyed that IE has been opened against your will.... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| mvic |
| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 5:31 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Jedi
Joined: 09 Mar 2004
Posts: 2080
|
| mqjeff wrote: |
| But that doesn't keep you from being annoyed that IE has been opened against your will.... |
I am in agreement with your first point: I do not like a big runtime load, in order to view docs.
Personally I do not mind which HTML browser is used, as long as it displays the docs correctly.
IMHO, HTML seems like the appropriate lowest common denominator implementation, not PDF. So this "requirement" to have PDF.. I am not sure I agree that PDF is the ideal solution to the underlying requirement. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| bruce2359 |
| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Poobah
Joined: 05 Jan 2008
Posts: 9469
Location: US: west coast, almost. Otherwise, enroute.
|
| mvic wrote: |
IMHO, HTML seems like the appropriate lowest common denominator implementation, not PDF. So this "requirement" to have PDF.. I am not sure I agree that PDF is the ideal solution to the underlying requirement. |
HTML was designed to transport documents with the look and feel of books. The InfoCenter model falls far short of this.
_________________
I like deadlines. I like to wave as they pass by.
ב''ה
Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi. As we Worship, So we Believe, So we Live. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| tleichen |
| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 6:30 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Yatiri
Joined: 11 Apr 2005
Posts: 663
Location: Center of the USA
|
What I can't understand is who came up with this in the first place? Why should MQ be different than other products? I still find PDF manuals to all other IBM products that I am concerned with at present, except for MQ. Look at the rest of the world and it still seems pretty obvious that PDF is more widely used. 
_________________
IBM Certified MQSeries Specialist
IBM Certified MQSeries Developer |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| fjb_saper |
| Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 10:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
Grand High Poobah
Joined: 18 Nov 2003
Posts: 20756
Location: LI,NY
|
Makes it easier to switch / redo / update a page without having to rebuild the whole manual...
_________________
MQ & Broker admin |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| oz1ccg |
| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:03 am Post subject: |
|
|
Yatiri
Joined: 10 Feb 2002
Posts: 628
Location: Denmark
|
When we (some of us ol'timers) vote for this many years ago, we agreed to drop Bookmanager and have infocenter instead together with the books (PDFs)... I believe someone thinks that the donis are gone.....
I make the PDF from infocenter by "printing" the whole book as a PDF (after modifying the infocenter setup)..
I don't believe that it should be a huge job to create a small program that can take the HTML documents in infocenter (or the source that was used) and create a normal document that can be indexed and saved as a PDF.
I find it quite hard to read thru something in infocenter due to it's tiny bits and pieces. Perhaps it's just me that don't have the "infocenter for Dummies" book giving the key to read up on a product or topic in an efficient way.
I still keep my ol' 7.0 MQ PDF-manual, and lookup the stuff there.
_________________
Regards, Jørgen
Home of BlockIP2, the last free MQ Security exit ver. 3.00
Cert. on WMQ, WBIMB, SWIFT. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
