old style help screens!

[s.wright@bbk.ac.uk]

Have just switched to 6.0 and am very discontented with the new help system.

The old system was invaluable to a regular user, like me, with a poor memory. While there were some quirks, once you were familiar with it I could quickly find commands and functions, both old and new. The "related topics" allowed you to skim rapidly through to the answer you required.

The new system is horrible. It is cumbersome, inflexible and slow. The old index allowed you to type in part of a word and find the relevant section - now all I get is an alphabetical listing, sometimes with tens or even hundreds of possible pages, with no ability to narrow the search. The search facility also seems to have been very badly programmed. If, for example, I want to find out how to extract the number of columns in a matrix, a search for "columns" produces a vast list of topics; but a search for "@columns" produces no results at all. So if I know the function, but not how to use it, there is no alternative but a cumbersome search.

It also doesn't even WORK properly. There appear to be links within pages but these don't work for me (despite allowing pop-ups). Eg, go to the "ubreak" page. There is what appears to be a link to"equation views" but if I click on this nothing happens.

There is a wise old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". I simply don't understand why the help screens were redesigned. Were active econometrician users of the program consulted? It doesn't seem as if they were.

Is there any chance that users could at least be offered the option either of old 5.1 style help screens? Or simply allow users to continue to use the actual 5.1 version, with the caveat that they may be out of date?

This is the kind of change that can easily send previously enthusiastic users of eviews running off to investigate other econometrics packages.

[EViews Gareth]

Unfortunately Microsoft, in their wisdom, decided to withdraw support for the old help system from Windows (Vista onwards), thus our hand was forced. We are well aware that the current help system has its flaws, but as of yet have not found a good alternative.

[s.wright@bbk.ac.uk]

Gareth - Thanks - Not sure I entirely understand. The help screens were previously integral to Eviews. Windows made that impossible?

Well could you at least give some tips on how to make the cross-page links work?

Eg, on the unit root page there appear to be links, as follows:

Cross-references

See "Unit Root Tests" for discussion of standard unit root tests performed on a single series, and "Panel Unit Root Tests" for discussion of unit roots tests performed on panel structured workfiles, groups of series, or pooled data.

if you hover the mouse above "unit root tests" there appears to be a java script popup call but it doesn't work for me (and yes I have enabled Javascript and am not blocking popups).

Thanks

Stephen

[EViews Gareth]

Previous versions of EViews used the Windows Help system for its help files, the help system was not written by us, nor was it an integral part of EViews, EViews just told Windows to launch a help browser and then pointed it at the file containing the information in the help system. Microsoft took away the help browser technology with Vista, and forbid software companies from providing it to users themselves.

We're re-investigating alternatives right now, since browser upgrades seem to break our existing help system (and it was never that great to begin with) on a regular basis.

[s.wright@bbk.ac.uk]

Damn that guy Gates.

In the mean time, any thoughts on the non-functioning popups?

[EViews Gareth]

It is probably a browser/security incompatibility. Not sure how much more help I can be other than that.


For what its worth, I normally use the PDF versions of help rather than the help system itself - I find them faster and easier to search.