A searchable operation manual.

This is my biggest gripe re: Cubase. It can take forever to locate what seem like fairly accessible functions in the operation manual (eg., try to find out what the “update origin” in the Audio menu function does/is, in under 2 minutes. Go ahead, try it.)…can we just please have a search function? Even if it looks like Wavelab’s… :wink: Thx!

8 sec. with good reader.

How?

On my Mac I’ve set PDF files to open in Adobe Reader.

Open the Operation Manual in Cubase’s Help/Documentation menu.
cmd F to search manual.

Sometimes I use the Find dropdown box in Adobe Reader to:
Search Whole Words Only.
Case Sensitive

ABSOLUTELY!

The biggest ‘fail’ in Cubase (I’m pretending to be young and with it) is not even in the program itself. It’s the documentation.

Put another way: if I could ‘improve’ one thing about Cubase, it would be the docs.

The search function in PDFs is -abominable- by default. Unfortunately, the ‘automatic index’ function (which is clearly what the Cubase doc writer mostly takes advantage of) does not help a user with terms of art and synonyms. It has no idea that a ‘Tab’ can have a zillion different contexts. It’s up to the doc writer to make up a manual index for search and having done this for -years- I can tell you that it takes almost as long to do properly as writing the actual content. So no one ever does it.

But anyone who has EVER searched for a cookbook procedure in Cubase has probably given up and gone to Google and a Youtube video. And why I hate -that- solution is because Videos are one of the world’s greatest TIME WASTERS. When you want to remind yourself something like: “How to adjust project tempo from an MP3 file” you want a 1,2,3,4,5 cookbook recipe. You DON’T want to have to watch some guy gas on for 12 minutes.

Unfortunately, as a former software dev, I can tell you that poor documentation is about as ingrained in the software culture as sex and violence in video games. After all these years, you simply get eye rolls from most software devs (and still some users—notably guys–just as in video games) when you mention ‘make the docs better.’ They just don’t have the empathy gene for it. And doubly unfortunately, almost no company -ever- fixes that culture. Organisations with cultural problems usually just don’t see it as a ‘problem’. Or they may pay condescending lip service.

At the very least? SB SHOULD PROVIDE A TOC AND INDEX OF THEIR VIDEOS. IOW: they should have a list of their videos in a TXT file with a detailed TOC and index of all the topics, procedures covered in each video. The current videos are like: #18 ‘Take Control Of Your Mix!’ WTF? do I do with -that-? What I -need- to know is… what wisdom is inside that video. That would take the producer like 1/2 to do and save the community an untold amount of time.


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Yup…exactly! This response saved me a ton of writing :wink:

Regards. :sunglasses:

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Making sure that every function and every preference is documented would be a big help. If I am looking through the available keycommands to see which functions I can add keyboard short cuts to, I get very frustrated when I find a function and think, “oh what does that do?”, load up the manual, go to the index and … it isn’t there.

Cubase is big enough now to warrant a feature refence manual which is more like an old programmers reference manual. That is one that simply lists all the functions and all the options, the context in which they can be used and what they do. A document like this is often the quickest way for experienced users to learn.

Building that sort of document is also a good exercise for programmers as it can often highlight inconsistencies or processes that can be streamlined and streamlining is something that Cubase can do with more than anything. Cubase has - and no one can deny this - an amazing feature set but in many areas, that feature set isn’t very well joined up - but that’s another topic.

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Yes, the index is totally inadequate. Fixing it is a perfect job for an intern - straightforward task that requires only modest technical ability and a willingness to slog through a lot of material.

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Put another way: if I could ‘improve’ one thing about Cubase, it would be the docs.

I couldn’t agree with you more on your entire post…particularly your last paragraph. That’s just brilliant. What a perfect way to avoid those indamnable homemade YouTube “tutorial” videos containing 10 seconds of the actual information buried within 10 minutes of unedited nonsense. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve muttered “kill me now” 5 minutes into one of those horror shows.

Have you ever noticed how the worst offenders inevitably start with: “Hi, guys”?

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Basically, they all take the the same stupid SEO course…

HOW TO GET 100,000 LIKES!

…on Youtube of course.

They seem to think that making a ‘Mr. Rogers’ style video is ‘friendly’. I always skip the 1st 2 minutes. The last 2 minutes are usually crap too. My rule of thumb: Go 33% in… whatever the video length… and that’s where the MEAT starts. And it’s usually about 33% of the total.

The videos where some person put those little ‘markers’ in there at the key moments? Those guys are SOOOO cool. But typically, the only people thoughtful enough to do that are at porn sites.

OK, I was kidding about that last part. Maybe. :smiley:

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