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Vectorworks 2016 Help is Fantastic!


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Poor help systems are one of my pet peeves. I want to comment on how great the implementation of the Vectorworks help is with 2016. Finally a help system that helps! Thank you Nemetschek.

I'm sure we'll all reminisce the old days of Adobe Air. I hated how it needed to be updated every single time I opened the darn thing. Glad that is history.

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Well, I dunno that I completly agree...the information may better, even "fantastic", but for me the UI has been utterly frustrating. I would prefer to use my iPad Mini to consult the Help topics while I work at my iMac, but can't seem to get the screen gestures to produce the results I expect: a reverse pinch automatically produces a display that is way too large for my screen; and the pinch doesn't just allow an user-adjusted resizing but exits to the 9/12 open tab chooser (or whatever it's called) -- a seamlessly unending Catch-22! The video links don't seem to work under iOS either. On my iMac, under Firefox, I have experienced very long-running rotating squares while I wait for my search results to appear. So I am using Safari now which seems to work somewhat better in that regard, but while I can easily scroll the left hand lists, it is very difficult for me to scroll the right hand topics -- activating the hidden scroll bar. Am I alone in this regard, or what are the tricks?

Edited by Majic
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@Majic : I'm really curious if you're having the same problems I've had viewing the Vw2016 help on my iPad (3rd Generation) in Safari on iOS 9:

Issues viewing 2016 online help file

On my iPad, the Vw2016 help file is zoomed super-large in landscape and can't be zoomed out (but it works better in portrait). I submitted a bug report and was told that if there were problems the web team would fix it, but nothing's been fixed yet. Over at that thread you can see some of the other desktop browser issues I've been having.

I'd really like to hear that I'm not the only one with these problems. So no - you're not alone.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
On my iMac, under Firefox, I have experienced very long-running rotating squares while I wait for my search results to appear. So I am using Safari now which seems to work somewhat better in that regard, but while I can easily scroll the left hand lists,

I am unable to replicate the long load times in the 2016 Help on OS X 10.10.5 in Firefox or Chrome. I did get one hiccup when i searched for "edge" but even then it was only 4 seconds. However, that server is one of our internal ones I believe, so increased traffic here could affect it. It should click over to the local version of the Help if it takes too long to load, how long is it delaying on your end?

@Majic : I'm really curious if you're having the same problems I've had viewing the Vw2016 help on my iPad (3rd Generation) in Safari on iOS 9:

Issues viewing 2016 online help file

On my iPad, the Vw2016 help file is zoomed super-large in landscape and can't be zoomed out (but it works better in portrait). I submitted a bug report and was told that if there were problems the web team would fix it, but nothing's been fixed yet. Over at that thread you can see some of the other desktop browser issues I've been having.

I'd really like to hear that I'm not the only one with these problems. So no - you're not alone.

After talking with TechPubs, apparently while the web version of Help does "support" mobile browsers, it was not optimized specifically for them, and doesn't include a lot of the basic functionality that you would expect like the various pinch behaviors. I will submit a request for this.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

@JimW: Still all the same issues viewing Vw2016 help on iOS 9.1 with multiple browsers, not just Safari.

1) Firefox 1.2 on iPad with iOS 9.1: in Landscape-mode the same issues as I noted using Safari in this other thread (see image from Firefox on iPad below), it's even worse in some ways. Super-zoomed text, can't zoom out. The 'related info' links at the bottom of some pages do not take you to the link, but back to the top of the page. But this seems inconsistent.

Overall Results: FAIL

Firefox 1.2 landscape-mode on iPad in iOS 9.1 (Note: this zoomed text is not a result of 'pinch-zoom' gestures)

ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=13605&filename=Firefox_1-2_ipad_iOS9-1.png

2) Firefox 1.2 on iPhone 5S with iOS 9.1: works in portrait and landscape modes (see attached screen caps), but the 'related info' links on some pages do not always work as noted above in #1. Text width is not respected on some pages (have to scroll sideways to read the text).

Overall Results: FAIL

3) Google Chrome 47.0.2526.70 on iPhone 5S with iOS 9.1: works in portrait and landscape modes (see the attached screen caps), but 'related links' on some pages don't take you to the link but to the top of the page. Text width is not respected on some pages (have to scroll sideways to read the text).

Overall Results: FAIL

Even though some of the browsers might display correctly in landscape or portrait mode, waaay too much valuable screen space is being used by the 'Vectorworks 2016 Help' and Search buttons at the top. On the iPhone, even when it is working correctly, at most you can read three or four lines of text at a time.

Furthermore, what I can't understand is why the Vw2015 Help file displays fine on iOS 9.1 without any of these problems. What features were added to the Vw2016 Help files that causes it break it under iOS 9?

Hopefully my feedback will help Vectorworks fix these browser issues, but I have to say that having End Users to test OS browser & device compatibility seems more than a little ridiculous as this is the primary responsibility of any web designer. Especially as it affects every browser on iOS 9.1.

I should not have to take the time to test each browser and device in order to tell Vectorworks which web pages work correctly. Does no one on the Vectorworks 'Web Team' have any personal or work iOS devices on which they can confirm or deny these help file issues?

Edited by rDesign
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@rDesign:

The web team doesn't handle the online help, it's written, edited, and published entirely by the Technical Publications department.

When implementing the 2015 online help, I personally tested the 2015 help on all the iOS and Android devices I had available, and it functioned on all devices with all commonly used browsers. I did not think to test the 2016 help so extensively because there were no indications of any such issues with 2015, and as far as we were aware no significant changes were made to Robohelp, the software we use for creating the online help. In addition to testing desktop operating systems, we tested the latest versions of Android and iOS, but not older portable device OSes.

After performing some tests and trying out different builds of the help system, we've found that the issue stems from updates Adobe made to Robohelp prior to our final creation of the 2016 help.

They are aware of the issue and hopefully will fix it in a future update to the software. We've tested several devices, and as far as we can tell currently the issue only affects iOS versions prior to 9.3.

That being said, I have successfully used and tested the online help on an iPad running 9.1 and Chrome version 47.0.2526.70

So my apologies for us not catching this; we did not expect there to be any reason for additional testing [it's not like HTML5 was going to change on us]. We will be testing updates of Robohelp and we'll fix the problem as soon as they fix it on their end.

Edited by MBrown
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@Martin Brown: Thanks for the clarifications - I should have known that somehow Adobe was involved. ;)

The online Vw2015 Help File functions perfectly for me as well, no matter which browser or device. That's why I couldn't understand how Vw2016 was so broken for specific devices, because as you said - it's HTML5.

I just tested and confirmed that the Vw2016 Help works fine on my iPad running iOS 9.2 and Chrome version 47.0.2526.70, including in landscape mode. Yay!

Anyways, Martin - thanks again for the update. I'm glad that a fix is in the works.

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  • 3 months later...

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