In my quest to understand a piece of software, I’ve got to work with Manuals and Tutorials. They do provide some help, but for me they’re not really working out.

Manuals tend to follow the menu structure and screen layout. But they hardly tell me when to use a specific function, and in which case what parameter settings are preferred. The menu structure never is the structure of my workflow. Manuals might help with the work but hardly contribute to the flow.

Tutorials tend to direct me to a specific result, and tell me which buttons to push and which parameters to set. But only in rare cases they tell me why. Tutorials might help with the flow, but hardly contribute to my next piece of work.

I do hope my Missing Manuals are different, and add to both the regular Manuals and Tutorials. I try to present a deeper understanding, to present the “why”. This way, they might contribute to your work and flow as they do to mine.

In order to get where I want, every chapter is an answer to the question raised in the chapters title. Hence, a ‘chapter’, an ‘article’ or a ‘question’ usually are similar pieces of the Missing Manuals. My intention is to present each piece in web-format, as PDF, and in video form. Let’s find out how far I can get.

More…

After half a year of presenting just tutorials I decided to restructure my websites. This included the move of my Links Library and and Magz Reviews right into here to bring all informative posts in one place. So, from then on, there is more than just Missing Manuals alone. Enjoy.