Feedback on Documentation
 

Hi WorldViz,

after trying the Beta for some time now here are my remarks about the Vizard Documentation:

1. generally: some commands accept parameters that are not described, only through the examples you find these parameters. E.g. in Tutorials & Examples » Example scripts » World demos » Duck court the viz.addText and viz.addAvatar commands; others that I know of are addLight or the vizshape.add* commands. They accept at least pos, scale or color.
   I seem to remember that some time ago this was indicated in the command index as *arg, **kw arguments but without an explanation of possible parameter tags. Rather than omitting these parameters I would like them parameter tags listed.
   
2. The What's New page omits to say that hotspots do now generate a deprecation warning and have been removed from documentation
   
3. The command set of some modules cannot be found in the Vizard Command Index. What I'm missing are vizdlg, vizinfo, vizproximity, but there might be more.
   
4. In some places in the See also section there are unlinked references. I found these:
   • Primer on networking
     This is not a link in
     • Reference » Networking » viznet
     • Reference » Networking » Networking command table
     • Reference » Networking » Multi User Environment
     • Reference » Networking » Networking basics ; this one is especially troublesome as in the first section on the page it is especially recommended to read that primer (what is probably just another missing link...)
   • viztip
     This is not a link in
     • Reference » Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) » vizpopup
     • Reference » Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) » GUI elements » GUI elements
     • Reference » Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) » Organizing GUIs » Making pop-downs with vizmenu
     • Reference » Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) » Organizing GUIs » Organizing GUIs with vizinfo
     • Reference » Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) » HTML and web browsers » Displaying HTML
     • and several more
5. What I could not find easily was the information of available keyboard shortcuts during a simulation. Eventually I found that hidden in Command Index » Vizard modules » viz » .go and Reference » Events » Event basics. Not my first choice to look at, personally. My recommendation would be to add this information to these pages
   • The Vizard IDE » Keyboard shortcuts
   • and also in a section on The Vizard IDE » Running scripts » Running scripts (like it is done in The Vizard IDE » Running scripts » Interactive Window)

Hope that helps,
Best Regards, Walter

Walter,

Thank you very much for taking the time to test out Vizard R5 Beta and especially for your in-depth comments. We apologize for the slow response as we're quite busy getting everything for R5 developed, tested, documented, and so on. We will definitely take your findings into consideration as we continue to finalize our documentation. Again, thanks for taking the time to report your findings to us and please continue to do so.

Best,
Masaki

Help: Global Settings / vizhtml.port is missing
 

Just came across the Global Settings reference page
Vizard 5 » Reference » Global settings » Global settings
and missed an entry for vizhtml.port setting as described in
Vizard 5 » Reference » Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) » HTML and web browsers » Local HTTP server and URLs
(which unfortunately even has a reference to the Global settings page but there is no entry of that setting [but the setting does work])

HTH, Walter

Update:
1. Glad you could incorporate my hints of the OP.

2. My reply on vizhtml.port missing in the Global Settings reference page is still valid as of Vizard 5.1 - its not there.

Something new: Did not notice the tools (Examiner, Highlighter) before. While exploring them, found these issues with help:
3. Reference » Tools » Highlighterthat the help of the Highlighter Command is incomplete (for once, the closing parenthesis is missing; and on top, there are not all options given that are available in the source code: highlightObject, rayCaster)

4. Reference » Tools » Laser Pointer
In the example script, the comment for the update code is wrongly referring to grabber, but it is laser pointer here.

5. Reference » Vizconnect » Advanced GUI » Tools
Question: are Pencil, Laser Pointer not available via Vizconnect? Because they are missing from that table at the bottom.

Regards, Walter

Thanks again for the feedback, we'll get these sorted out for the 5.4 docs.