ArcGIS Help Library: Are they trying to encourage eye strain?

LetaRogers

I recently looked something up in ArcGIS Help Library for the first time in years. The background of the search results box ("Powered by AnswerWorks") is a blue-to-white gradient that makes the results very hard to read as the eyes have to adjust for the changing background color as you read left-to-right. (At least it doesn't use Comic Sans font.) I suggest they pick white or light blue, but not a gradient.

DanPatterson_Retired · ‎06-05-2016

If you can, use the online help Documentation | ArcGIS for Desktop

looks better, is updated regularly and it doesn't slow down arcmap

LetaRogers · ‎06-05-2016

Oh, sure, I do, but their offline documentation shouldn't look like crap.

BenLeslie1 · ‎06-06-2016

It would also be helpful if the offline help told me what licence level each tool requires.

My Arc machine is offline so I use the offline help to copy and paste python snippets (and because sometimes it's easier than switching machine and searching again).

DanPatterson_Retired · ‎06-06-2016

The workaround is somewhat strange... but if you can't see it, you can't use it or you can uncheck this and it will show the tool as being locked

BenLeslie1 · ‎06-06-2016

Thanks for the suggestion but I don't really use the toolbox, I've never learnt my way around it. I always use the search tab and as far as I can tell there are no options to limit search results to available tools (and how can I pester my boss to get a licence upgrade if I never see what I'm missing out on).

LetaRogers · ‎06-06-2016

The documentation in general has been going downhill the last few years. I wonder if they are phasing out the offline documentation altogether? It'd be better to have the option to have a local mirror of the online documents as an option, if one wants, than this half-hearted off-line help. Our internet connection was super slow the other day when I checked the ArcGIS Help LIbrary, and discovered how weak it was.

Another problem with the documentation is that outdated information keeps getting carried along. For example, VBA is no longer supported in 10.x, yet the current documentation still tells you to use the ArcID tool in VBA to look up the GUID of commands and toolbars.

FYI, this is where one can find the GUIDs for 10.3 (if the document has been updated for any updates for 10.4, I wasn't able to find it). It took me a good half hour of searching online and in answers to forum and stackexchange questions to find this information:

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