Results - Help

01 Jun 1996 updated

See also Help section of the meeting presentation

We all agree that PowerDesigner's help, although improving, is minimal and often inadequate. This results in excessive dependency on experienced users and Powersoft's help staff.

  1. Examples (e.g., screen shots, tasks scripts)are rarely given and would make complex explanations much clearer.
  2. There is no useage guide to explain PowerDesigner's principles and concepts, typical approaches, shortcuts, pitfalls, and other expert wisdom. See OLAIS for a prototype of an interactive, hypertext useage guide (user = "olais", password = "xiao").
  3. A comprehensive index and cross reference is needed to span all product modules. This should include terms which are not defined within the product but are synonomous with PowerDesigner's language (e.g., "merge", "fold", and "unify" foreign key are all the same).
  4. Document and publish all file formats (INI, PAM, CDM, PDM, DEF, CDF).

Where to go from here:

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