Suggestion: Compile solutions in these forums to the help doc

[Raindrops]

This forum has solved a lot of user needs and cleared their doubts.

However, this wisdom is scattered all over the forums, and any user has to search hard to find his solution.
Many users do not bother and simply post their question in the forum, which increases clutter.

It is best to add such solutions to the help docs, so that the user finds them simply by pressing F1 from Everything.

The most ideal case is to copy and paste the text from forum threads to the help doc, and edit the text to make it more efficient and accurate.
Sometimes the subject of the post is obscure, so it must be rephrased to ensure better discoverability.

But at minimum, a TOC can be created in the help doc, from where links to such forum threads can be provided.
The TOC re-arranges all topics in a logical sequence and a hierarchical tree.
This will reduce the users' search effort tremendously.

For example, my own queries contain a lot of solutions:
1. How to map drives persistently using USBDLM
2. How to index a network folder and map it as a drive
3. How to remove duplicate drive letters

However, this wisdom is not compiled in a neat searchable list.

[Raindrops]

Another change needed is to introduce a subject first, and only then add nuanced topics about that subject.

For example, the concept of "Bookmarks" is unique in Everything.
Normally, a user associates the word "bookmark" with a "location" (a drive or folder in Explorer, and a URL in a browser).
But here, the term has a much broader definition.

And yet the term is not defined/explained at all.
If we search the focums for "bookmarks", it yields 1385 matches!
Obviously, no user is going to painfully read through those many posts.

We should follow the Microsoft documentation, in which every topic starts with a "all about xxx" section.
This section explains the basic concepts, and lays the background.
After reading this, the user is ready to absorb more advanced topics about that subject.

But if we are confused about what a bookmark means, we will struggle to make good use of it.

[void]

Official documentation is here:

https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything

Using Everything gives a brief summary of bookmarks.



This support wiki will be updated when Everything 1.5 is in beta.

Everything 1.5 TOC (Pressing F1 in Everything takes you to this page)

Thank you for the suggestions.

[NotNull]

Also: post interesting/useful/.. solutions in the Greatest Hits thread.

[Raindrops]

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, the documentation is there, and the greatest hits thread does help.
But both are not optimized for rapid discovery.
(For example, the "top hits" list is not part of the TOC. It should be!)

Most users are in a hurry: They want to look up something and move on.
They are not willing to invest time in reading a documentation from start to finish.

So it is better to change its layout to make it discoverable.

For example, one easy way would be to match the TOC with the menu system.
In other words, the TOC should list the top menu options as follows:

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File
Edit
View
Search
Index
History
Bookmarks
Tools
Help

Popular searches  <-- This is a special entry in the TOC

Each of these entries should be hyperlinked to reach its own webpage.
For example, the hyperlink on File should jump to a webpage that has the following sections:

• New Tab
• New Window
• Open File List...
• Recent File Lists
• Close File List
• Close Window
• Close Tab
• Export...
• Exit

In turn, each section should have the following content:

1. Annotated screenshots
2. Explanation about what each control does, and
3. If there are options (e.g. radio buttons, drop-down list), then what each option does (how/when to select it).

Since the user already knows how he came to a particular screen, he is more likely to trace his path to look up that particular UI.
---------------
The TOC follows the UI's own layout.

But often a user cannot figure out which menu to select for his task.
Therefore he should be offered another TOC that shows all deliverables of Everything in a hierarchical tree.
This should be placed just below the main TOC.
These entries also should be hyperlinked to the content pages.

----------------
The Home page of the User Manual should also offer a "search for your topic" search field below the two TOCs described above.
Actually this functionality is already there in the Advanced search.
But many users are not expert enough to realize that.

So by making this search field highly visible on the home page, we can help such users.

[void]

I have started a Useful searches topic.
I will start linking useful searches here.

The official documentation is pretty close to your suggested TOC layout:
https://www.voidtools.com/support/everything/using_everything/

I will look into expanding this documentation for each menu item in Everything 1.5..

Thank you for the suggestions.

[NotNull]

Also:

the statusbar is one of the must important, yet underexposed parts of the Everything UI.
Everything communicates a lot through the status bar. In this case: currently selected menu items will be explained in the status bar too.

[ChrisGreaves]

But at minimum, a TOC can be created in the help doc, from where links to such forum threads can be provided.

Hi Raindrops.
Just to get you started, here is the contents list from my User "Tutorial.doc", currently at 240+ pages and growing.
There is an Index.
About 95% of the entries in the tutorial contain direct links to forum posts, help files etc.

I have a simpler "How do I?" document, only 32 pages.

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Contents
How do I Use this Document?	1
How do I Find an Answer in the Forums?	2
Advanced Search	2
How do I Build a 1:1000 Sample of File Names?	4
How do I Change the Reserved Characters Used By Everything?	5
How do I Locate all Empty Files?	6
How do I Locate all Empty Folders?	9
How do I Detect and Remove all But One Copy of a File	11
How do I Display all the Path Columns in Reverse Order?	13
How do I Locate a Specific File?	14
How do I Find what large files are duplicated on my drive?	15
How do I Locate Pairs (But Not Triplets) of Files?	17
How do I Make a List of Unique File Types in a Folder [tree]?	18
How do I Rationalize all copies of a composer’s operas?	19
How do I Rename Files?	20
How do I Run Everything on Linux?	21
How do I Show the Content of Offline Files?	22
How do I use the Function<here>?	23
How do I use the Modifer<here>?	24
How do I use the Filter<here>?	25
How do I use the Operator<here>?	26
How do I use the Constant<here>?	27
INDEX	28

Cheers, Chris

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Contents
The Tutorials	2
Simplest Search	3
Searching	9
Functions	23
Modifiers	61
Comments	104
Index	106
Command Line Interface	108
Command Line Options	112
Customizing	113
ETP	114
Everything Service	115
Folder Indexing	116
Functions	117
HTTP	150
Indexes	151
INI	156
Tutorial Installation	157
Keyboard Shortcuts	170
Lexicon	172
Macros	173
Multiple Instances	178
Options	179
Previous Versions	180
Recent Changes	181
Regular Expressions (Regex)	182
Results	184
Run History	190
SDK	195
Search History2	196
Supported Languages	201
Terminology	208
Translating	218
Traps for Young Players	219
Troubleshooting	222
Uninstalling Everything	223
What's New	224
History of Everything	225
WhatFAQ.DOC	242