[Elecraft] K4 On-screen documentation

[Rod Hardman]

Another one of the many reasons I am an Elecraft fanboy - Their Silicon Valley sense of good User Interface! Documentation and its integration to the physical operation of the product is something the best companies in the Bay Area do very well. 

Well done, can’t wait to see it. (but Im patient!)

/rod

On Sep 15, 2020, at 17:22, Rick Tavan <rick at tavan.com> wrote:

I just had the opportunity to review a draft of the K4 on-screen
documentation. It's excellent! It's fully hyper-linked with HTML browser
capabilities so I could jump around, following links to my heart's content
and eventually returning to where I began reading. It includes not only the
anticipated explanations of each connector, physical switch, knob, and
on-screen button, but also procedural operating instructions on how to do
the things one needs to do with a radio. When loaded into a K4, it will be
readable like a typical hypertext document with a Table of Contents at the
top. Also, you will be able to tap a button to see help on the
most-recently used function. So if you do something and aren't sure what
happened, just ask and it will pop up an explanation of that control. Or
tap something just to queue up help on how it works. Slick!

I read the material on a computer browser but it was already white-on-black
as I expect it to be on the K4 screen. Function names are bracketed and
color-coded to distinguish physical switches, touch controls, and knobs.
Hold-functions of switches and touch controls are in yellow instead of
white and preceded by a modifier like "Hold" so I think it will be very
usable by hams with compromised color vision. There are some handy pictures
of panel and screen snippets that illustrate references beyond the shadow
of doubt, but not so many as to make the document bulky or awkward.

This Help system sets a standard that more technically advanced
transceivers and other devices should evolve to meet.

This text is also serving as the "seed" for the full, printable manual. I
expect that manual to be in typical Elecraft style, with loads of diagrams
and highly detailed explanations. I'm not sure I'll need it very often,
though, since the on-screen material is so comprehensive.

Please be merciful to Elecraft and refrain from immediate calls for a
public version. That will follow soon, I'm sure, after the next round of
revisions and additions.

73,

/Rick N6XI
Field Tester/Proof Reader

--

Rick Tavan
Truckee and Saratoga, CA
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