Java Help

It was in march that I downloaded java help. It took just one look for the realization to dawn that the help on java help needs a lot of help. So it has been in the back burner for six months. Today I had another look at it and this time struggled through a few chapters of extremely boring documentation before I figured out how to run the demos.

In most software packages demos are supposed to work with minimal effort and can usually be executed without reading through the manual. Not so java help. You might think authors of a help system might know better.

To be precise how to run the demos wasn't part of the manual, it was hidden away in one of the numorous README files scattered throughout the download bundles. In order to run the demo you need to compile a few source files. The class paths, compiler directives etc are all spread across a page and a half of this readme and becomes quite a tedious cut and paste operation.

One wonders why compiling the demos isn't an ant task. In fact there is an ant task to compile the so called server help and this has to be compiled separately from other demos. The developers of Java Help certainly have done their level best to make the system extremely annoying and dfficult to use.