User Manual Usability

[hrynkiw]

Can the User Manual interface be tweaked? Or perhaps the way the User Manual Quick Search returns results?

I experience ongoing frustration with using the User Manual because I can't find what I'm looking for -- even though I often recall having read it there previously. And the results the Quick Search returns seem very... programmer-heavy.

For example, I just tried to use it to search for information about the Library menu bar entry.

Go ahead, try it for yourself. http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/
Quick Search > Library

The first three returned results are two command-line options and a Python method. And nowhere on the list do I see "Library". (Turns out the bit I'm looking for is hidden under "Graphical User Interface".) (Oh, I just realized that the search results are alphabetized, which is why the command-line arguments, which start with dashes, are at the top.)

Would it be possible to configure the Quick Search to also index on the sub-headings of the User Manual pages so that (for example, continuing to use my search from above) the following headings from the GUI page would also show up:
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/gui.html
Actions
Add books
Edit metadata
Convert e-books
View
Send to device
Fetch news
Library
Device
Save to disk
Connect/Share
Remove books

I think these are the sorts of search results that a novice or non-technical user would be looking for.

[hrynkiw]

I think I found a data-entry typo. (Is there a better place for me to report these?)

The three headings starting at the link below all have exactly the same "The E-book Viewer" content:

http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual...-e-book-viewer

==The calibre e-book viewer==
* The E-book Viewer
* Starting the viewer
* Navigating around an e-book
* Customizing the look and feel of your reading experience
* Dictionary lookup
* Copying text and images

==Customizing calibre‘s e-book conversion==
* The E-book Viewer
* Starting the viewer
* Navigating around an e-book
* Customizing the look and feel of your reading experience
* Dictionary lookup
* Copying text and images

==Editing e-book metadata==
* The E-book Viewer
* Starting the viewer
* Navigating around an e-book
* Customizing the look and feel of your reading experience
* Dictionary lookup
* Copying text and images

[hrynkiw]

May I suggest adding a link at the bottom of this article
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual...#edit-metadata
to
http://calibre-ebook.com/user_manual/metadata.html

(Today has been an "Explore the Calibre User Manual" day. Can you tell? )

[kovidgoyal]

I fixed your two bugs. As for the search, IIRC it returns every page that has the words you're searching for anywhere in them.

Since the user manual also contains technical documentation, returning the technical results is unavoidable. I wouldn't want to exclude them from being searchable.

[hrynkiw]

Hi Kovid. Thanks for fixing the bugs.

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

(...) As for the search, IIRC it returns every page that has the words you're searching for anywhere in them.

Since the user manual also contains technical documentation, returning the technical results is unavoidable. I wouldn't want to exclude them from being searchable.

Oh -- I don't have a problem with the technical documentation being included. The Manual is also for the use of the technically able after all. I just think the search and the Manual in general would be more useful to the technically, uh, less-abled if the suggested headings also showed up in the search results.

[kovidgoyal]

I also improved the search somewhat, it now shows a small extract under each search result that should help judge the relevance of the result