ZC 2.11 beta 14 manual

[koopa]

I have been working on the manual on and off for some time now. Basically, Phantom Menace and others wrote the zquest.txt file that you see when you press F1 in Zquest and it hasn't been updated for some time.

I'm working on bringing it up to date - This is the first part which is basically just a list of menu items and hotkeys.

Link (PDF) (h1.ripway.com/zckoopa/manual/b14manualunfinished.pdf)

More to come soon.

[Warlock]

Nice. Since it's PDF I strongly suggest adding pictures to illustrate some sections, as that will make it a lot easier to follow.

Also, once you get further in, a tutorial for designing a simple quest would be good for beginners.

[Petoe]

Yeah, nice start for the much needed guide! As Warlock said, screenshots would make things even easier to follow, but as long as a guide is in the making, I am happy.

[Nimono]

Could you try to make that into a .txt file? Some people don't have the required programs to run certain kinds of files, and they're not willing to pay to get it just so they can read a help file. That, and some people simply can't get certain programs. For example, I can't open files that require Word, because of two reasons:
1) I don't have Word, only WordPad.
2) If I try to install it, it asks for a registration number, which is on a CD case that I don't have.

So therefore, I must rely on other people to get information out of them. It's extremely annoying and makes me want to throw things at random locations, including my computer at a wall. I also hate having to rely on others. I do that TOO MUCH.

[Brandon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PDF_software

Pick one and have fun. All free I belive.

[Nicholas Steel]

just go t www.adobe.com and download there free reader software... they are the designers of the pdf format after all.

warlock - section 1 says this guide is not a tutorial so adding instructions on making a quest is out of the question unless thats removed from section 1 :)

[koopa]

OK. First of all thanks for your comments.

I thought about adding pictures. It would help, I know, but it would also increase the filesize a bit. I'll probably add some soon.

I chose PDF because I think it's the easiest way to make documents that almost anyone can read and that can still contain formatting - and the software for it can be downloaded for free (I specifcally did not release it as a word document, although the original is).

Plain .txt has advantages and disadvantages - one being that some might not find it quite as readable as it could be. There's just more you can do with other formats.

Another option is to release the final thing as .html pages with pictures. If Armageddon Games wants to host it, I'll give them the originals or even make the html if they want. I think that would be useful and might attract some more people too, but that's just a suggestion. At least everyone should be able to read that (if not, then how did you get here?) but it has the slight disadvantage that you'd have to be online to read it (ok, I could make a zip so you can download it locally too).

The writing of tutorials isn't the object of the manual. I'd suggest that beginners will still find the "old" ones (LTM, Alphadawg, ...) useful. Also there's zcu that aims to be among other things a tutorial site - the link is where it belongs, in my sig.
I'm sure an "official" tutorial that's distributed with ZC would be good - either that or one on AGN's website (zeldaclassic.com) but that's not my responsibilty.

Once again, I think PDF is one of the most widely readable (and free) formats but if you know of any better ones that offer the features (text formatting, pictures) that I'll all need sooner or later tell me.

[Warlock]

Another option is to release the final thing as .html pages with pictures. If Armageddon Games wants to host it, I'll give them the originals or even make the html if they want. I think that would be useful and might attract some more people too, but that's just a suggestion. At least everyone should be able to read that (if not, then how did you get here?) but it has the slight disadvantage that you'd have to be online to read it (ok, I could make a zip so you can download it locally too).

That would be my choice - I think HTML is the best. It's also not as god-aweful slow as PDFs are :P

[beefster09]

There are a few things that could be fixed in a matter of seconds. Other than that, good job.
-Considering we dropped DOS, you might want to change that to "Windows/Linux/Mac OS"

BTW: Just use the txt for the manual accessed by zquest, but then have it refer to itself as the version for zquest only. (zquest.txt) Just for the sake of those who have dial-up. (I don't actually) and/or you could make ZQuest able to read PDFs.

[Questwizard88]

That would be my choice - I think HTML is the best. It's also not as god-aweful slow as PDFs are :P


I agree with that too.. HTML is WAY faster and easier to deal with than PDF. Even the non-Adobe readers are slow, though all of the ones I've tried are at least a little faster, but not by much. You could always make a zipped version for download as well.

[Nicholas Steel]

i like chm files :) but thats me... word documents are fine aswell... also pdfs are only slow on old hardware... trust me they all open fine for me and i can scroll 100% smoothly no matter the quality of pics in them an egample of a detailed pdf could be the one included with warcraft 3 (unless im thinking of the book that came with it :()...

[Questwizard88]

Still, a mojority of the people you'll find don't have extremely fast computers that can handle them well enough to even bother opening them. Mine can't even handle plain text PDFs very well, even with different readers. (I hate Adobe's, not only because of slowness and INSANE loading times, but also because the uninstaller doesn't function. It just refused to uninstall every time I tried, so I had to remove it myself.) Scrolling for me even in plain text is extremely choppy, say like 4 updates on the screen a second. Less with pictures.

[Nicholas Steel]

the installer is heavily biased towards intel pentium style processors... heh it takes like 30 minutes to decompress the install files using neopet systems installer on a cyrix 3 600mhz processor... but on a slower p3 it rockets along.

[koopa]

I know that pdf files can load quite slowly in browsers (and crash my firefox), so I strongly recommend you download the file first then open it.

Anyway, HTML the version is on the way.