Documentation/Dashboard/Help Style Guide
From Apache OpenOffice Wiki
Contents
Help "Guides" (How-to instructions)
Calc functions
A typical help text for a Calc function should follow this scheme of paragraph styles:
Style | Function | Example |
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hidden text | Index entry | <BOOKMARKVALUE>DATE function</BOOKMARKVALUE> |
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Second level heading | DATE
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hlp_paragraph | Function description | This function converts a date written as year, month, day to an internal serial number and displays it in the cell's formatting. The default format of a cell containing the DATE function is the date format, but you can format the cells with the 0 number format, which displays the internal serial number of the date as a number. |
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Third level heading | Syntax
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Syntax definition | DATE(Year; Month; Day) |
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Explanation of function arguments | Year is an integer between 1583 and 9956 or 0 and 99. In Tools - Options - StarOffice - General you can set from which year a two-digit number entry is recognized as 20xx. |
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Third level heading | Example
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Example | =DATE(00;1;31) yields 1/31/00 if the cell format setting is MM/DD/YY. |
Distribution of Function Descriptions in the Help
- One file for every Calc function: Every Calc function should be presented as a self-contained entity as we have it already for some functions like DATE, HOUR, YEAR and some others.
- One function list for every function category: The individual Calc functions should be bundled in a category file. These category files should contain a list of the related functions, each with a short description (that can be taken from the Calc function file) and a link to the corresponding Calc function file.
Checklist for the Completeness of Function Descriptions
Here are some hints related to the contents that should be considered in every function description although they are sometimes missing in the actual help files.
- Think global when you give examples. The english documentation is an international one.
- Give unambiguous examples.
- Mention differences to Excel.
- Advise of argument types that are silently converted.
- Advise of general settings that influence the result.
- Mention the mathematical formula, which is used to calculate the result.
- Advise of incorrect arguments that generate no error.
- Tell the user, if named ranges, named formulas, labels or named data ranges are not resolved to their content or are forbidden.
- Tell the user if internal underflow or overflow is not automatically detected. Tell about the accuracy if possible.