+1(x10^100).  I have the full documentation set (for multiple versions of OpenEdge) either as pinned tabs or at the very least bookmarked.  So far what I've seen of OE12 "documentation" is anything but.

My desired format is the complete set of downloadable PDFs.  I find them easiest to read and importantly, they're available offline.  I use them daily.

PDF documentation for OE12 is available here: community.progress.com/.../1329.openedge-product-documentation-overview

Link can be found in the OpenEdge box in the bookshelf site.

Personally I prefer the PDF documentation on the local machine. I rarely use the Web based documentation.

• I find the PDF docs on the local machine much more responsive and simpler to read when I know exactly what I am looking for.
• I can send the relevant manual to my Kindle for some "light bed time reading" when I need to learn something new, or simply want to sharpen my knowledge.
• The pdf docs are always at the same place and they are always accessible to me. The internet might not be and the links to online documentation can change.
• I might not be looking for "latest' but for the previous version where this-or-that is not available and I need to remember how we did it before that. I never remove old documentation sets, even if I uninstall the version and delete the install files. You never know which version the next phone call will involve.

I admit freely that HTML with links makes for rapid random access when you need to jump all over the place, but  that is not how I learn and it is rarely what I need. Using the online documentation to try to learn something gives me the feeling of reading fragments and bits and pieces. Working with the traditional page layout of a book gives me the feeling that there is structure and method and a step-by-step process to soak up new knowledge.

Thank you for the link [mention:f0668804e0e740dd872f501c6ac7df92:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]!

Adding one more question about the PDF - In previous versions (at least the ones I have), there was a start.pdf that linked to the rest of the PDFs. I can open the new PDFs individually based on the filenames, but is there a plan to have a start.pdf as the top level navigation?

> PDF documentation for OE12

I'm shocked. It's not a documentation but an unstructured set of the articles. ;-(

[quote user="Tim Hutchens"]

Adding one more question about the PDF - In previous versions (at least the ones I have), there was a start.pdf that linked to the rest of the PDFs. I can open the new PDFs individually based on the filenames, but is there a plan to have a start.pdf as the top level navigation?

[/quote]

I was about to post this.  I cannot use the documentation without an index page...

Etienne

I'm confused too. It is not clear how to use it now. I hope this is the first draft and it will be fixed soon.

In previous versions most of the PDF files had short cryptic names. For 12 the names of the PDF files are much more descriptive so it is not that difficult identify what each one is for but a Start.pdf would be better - it would give it some structure.

Push come to shove, this wouldn't be a hard thing to be provided by someone from the user community, but it should come from PSC so that it is in the standard distribution.

Me too.  Agree with you [mention:bfaee6d85eff467b8f2498e8c27f30ae:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], about the shock it causes not being able to do things (docs reading) as we've doing last 20 years...

latest compared to the new docs

i.imgur.com/CGaVy43.jpg

the new docs is definitely not an improvement

* Only a fraction of the screen is used. The same problem has been reported for the community site ages ago.

* The index is missing

* The first hit with basic usage is not useful, you really need the notes when using progress statements

* there is an attempt at colour coding but it's very random. I guess java or C# syntax is used instead of OpenEdge syntax. If there is no OpenEdge syntax for colour coding , there should be none. Currently ther are kind of random splashes of colour

On the positive side : query is much faster, on the "latest" site I always had query with google on the new docs site query is fast

Wow, this is a huge step down from the old one (which wasn't perfect either).

Any official comments on this?

[mention:ff19c4250db54b2cad70c7e502acff94:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05], could you comment on the situation with the documentation for OE 12?

Seems the Bookhelf *is* the complete documentation set. At least the ABL reference pages match up with the PDF versions what were offered before.

But:

- Getting to those pages is a chore. Way too much clicking & scrolling involved to get where I want to be. Guess I'll have to set up a set of bookmarks in my browser just to point to my favorite "books". (And triggering that sort of behavior tends to be a sign of bad webdesign).

- Within each "book" the behavior is inconsistent. Some start with a sensible index page (again, the ABL reference), others immediately start off with an introductionary blurb that you want to skip once you have a certain level of familiarity with the products.

- The way the table of contents wastes space and forces more scrolling across the entire page is also unpleasant. Make just the pane scrollable and reduce the whitespace in it.

To throw in some corporate buzzwords, this is the opposite of "An Exceptional User Experience".

I agree Progress missed the mark on this one.  While I have the entire PDF set on my PC, the online-version offered some nice searching capabilities.

Hi Tim:

The OpenEdge Information Hub is a searchable, topic-based portal for offering Progress technical content. The primary mechanism for delivering content is HTML pages, not PDF files. For those who still need a PDF, we encourage you to visit the Bookshelf. You also have the option of downloading a ZIP of all the PDFs from .

Please note that we trimmed many books from OpenEdge because either the technology was deprecated or the books were out of date. We are also in the process of re-titling some books to improve the searchability. Although you may not find the exact title from the 11.x release, please use the robust Search feature to find the content that you need.

OpenEdge 12 is the first release of the OpenEdge Information Hub. We are working to better understand how you want to use the site. For example, we are optimizing the searchability, improving the breadcrumbs, and surfacing Related Links to provide context for a topic or additional topics related to the subject matter. Please use the feedback option to communicate directly with the Content Team.   We value your feedback!

Thank you,

The OpenEdge Content Team

Sorry...the URL for the PDFs got truncated in the post. You can obtain PDFs of the OpenEdge books from:

community.progress.com/.../download

[quote user="George Potemkin"]

> PDF documentation for OE12

I'm shocked. It's not a documentation but an unstructured set of the articles. ;-(

[/quote]

You can look at documentation two ways.

The old archaic ancient low-tech way where some guy or gal or a group of guys and gals, collected indexed, reviewed reindexed and re-revied documentation and produced and published a cohesive "book" that could be read front to back. 

Here comes "progress", new available technology allowing disconnected thoughts and information snippets to be available. No need to pay said guys or gals to labor over "old" methods" of producting documentation that  are costly, slow inefficient and don't take advantage of new technology that help grab a point or two from Gartner.   It could be worse. All this information could have become exclusively available as short youtube videos. There is always v13 for that !   Eeeek.

[quote user="dmicozzi"]

Please note that we trimmed many books from OpenEdge because either the technology was deprecated or the books were out of date. We are also in the process of re-titling some books to improve the searchability. Although you may not find the exact title from the 11.x release, please use the robust Search feature to find the content that you need.

[/quote]

I wonder what key parts of the docs were lost this time.

See also:

https://knowledgebase.progress.com/articles/Article/ABL-preprocessor-directives-known-issues-000081204 , "HOW DOES THE PREPROCESSOR WORK"

https://knowledgebase.progress.com/articles/Article/Unable-to-update-VIEW-AS-EDITOR-text-field , "DOCUMENTATION ON HOW TO WRITE PURE ABL GUI CODE, USE DYNAMIC QUERIES AND OTHER TOPICS IS MISSING IN LATER DOCUMENTATION SETS".

You've got features that are widely used, not deprecated etc. that have officially been undocumented for *years*, and I can see no evidence of that being changed in the OE 12 documentation.

I downloaded the PDF, sadly there is no index, just a bunch of pdf files.  

[quote user="Blake Stanford"]

I downloaded the PDF, sadly there is no index, just a bunch of pdf files.  

All the Hub topics are currently under review by the OpenEdge engineering team. I expect topics will be added and deleted from the Hub based on this review. I will add the topics you mentioned to the list of content that needs to be added to the documentation.

I may have missed it but I could not find anything on the jms api...sonic 4gl adapter.

Please do not get so consumed with the nice online toys that you forget that quick reference is not the only use case. Many of us also need frequent offline access to properly structured documentation.

I service database servers that are so locked down that you physically have to be at the console to do maintenance. Such a machine is normally totally locked down and can't browse anything. But you can copy the PDF documentation to the machine when you do the install. If you have such documentation.

I am also in the air between Europe and Africa for almost 24 hours every month. It is a perfect time to learn about enhancements and new products - if it can be done in flight mode. Or better yet, if you can put the book on your Kindle.

Besides, I find it much simpler to learn new things when I am working top to bottom through a properly structured document. The web toys might be nice for quick reference, but it is definitely not so friendly for knowledge building.

[mention:a0a6f41de5ca4db4a1aa018193347b3d:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05],

HTML delivery is fine - this has been the case for a number of releases now. But you also used to provide links to download the HTML docs for offline/local reading. It sounds like you have moved the docs out of a statically written HTML site and into a Content Management System. If so, I'm pretty sure you won't be able to offer a downloadable version of the HTML docs.This trade-off is probably giving you excellent content indexing for searching, but that's not what we want most.

I think most of the responses to this thread are ultimately saying that we are looking for a single hierarchical table of contents for the docs and the ability to view the docs locally/offline. It's less about HTML vs PDF. We would like a start.pdf for the PDF version like there used to be to provide the top level table of contents. For the online/HTML docs, we would also like a single table of contents that lists every article of the documentation set in its proper place in the hierarchy.

The search-first strategy is good for finding isolated pieces of documentation (like finding the syntax reference for an ABL keyword). But we are looking for the book/manual that puts all the documentation in the context of the entire OpenEdge ecosystem. If you could merge the two, that would be a win-win. Previously, if you did a search in the online docs, it would list a set of search results. On clicking a result, it took you to the article AND showed where the article was in the left hand table of contents. If you could give us back the always-present table of contents, that would likely satisfy many of us.

Two direct questions in response to your reply: 1) Instead of removing books that were out of date, shouldn't you update the book? 2) Where should we provide feedback on the OE Info Hub in general? The feedback links you mentioned seem to be for commenting on specific articles. See screenshot below. The community seems like the right place for this conversation.

We are watching this community thread closely and considering all points and feedback. Everyone is bringing up valid points.

Just installed 12.0 on a system - I like the new PDF document names, a "start.pdf" is needed for the same use the pre-12.0 versions used them for.

A real "nice to have" would be a PDF version of the "Pocket Progress" from ages ago. This would be a big help for cases where you don't need the full docs, just the format and the options for the various commands and statements, and you're not sure which doc has the information you need.

I'm just starting with Progress, brand new.

If a stack of articles is your entire plan for documentation going forward, then I hope you will instead be paying some guy or gal or a group of guys and gals, to parse and index, review reindex and re-review articles and produce and publish a cohesive set of articles that have are each and every one additional re-indexed for every release to indicate exactly which releases they are applicable to, and allow new users to follow a topic through from start to finish without a bunch of peripheral rare problem reports, with an index and table of contents.

And, use better key-wording and topic labeling, with smarter AI search engines. I get so sick of searching knowledge bases that return a crap-load of unrelated issues because I had some of the same words, but not together in a sentence, just sprinkled through the article.

Oh, and it would be great if those search engines will still provide information for me when i'm in the air, or on an air-gapped system.

And please don't format them solely for tablets. I hate those new web pages with so much blank space and huge buttons that I'm always scrolling and clicking around instead of reading.

Will check this out. The PDF documents with a searchable index where great for finding information when you didn't know where to look for it. Will see if this works for that as well.

Personally, I have been hoping for a long time for a move to more of an eDoc format that would be more compatible with things like iBooks, Google Books, etc and allow for using their feeatures (section highlighting, bookmarks, reading text, etc!)

JMTC

[mention:819ac0812c524a3b9718403d142f1ba2:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]  Yes, I can comment.

Our content team has done a tremendous work to launch the first version of new Knowledge Hub as a first step in modernizing our entire content delivery platform. As I can see from the comments here, there is a lot we still need to address and I assure you our team is carefully watching all your suggestions and feedback with intent to make things better. Our intent is to delight you with better experience not to frustrate you. The current version is just that, the first iteration. Consider, that we are now in a position to make improvements to the content at any time instead of waiting for the next release. You absolutely will be able to extract the information for use in offline mode. We also paved a way to better search across all content, not just user guides, but also KB articles, education content, communities, etc.

Please be patient and supportive of our content team that works hard to help you have a better experience.

I would also recommend proactive collaboration around ongoing work via Customer Validation Program (CVP).

Thank you,

Oleg

what is customer validation portal?

It is the customer validation program (CVP). The CVP is a new community web site the Product Managers use to obtain feedback on products under development. See www.progress.com/.../customer-validation-programn for more details.

It is the customer validation program (CVP). The CVP is a new community web site the Product Managers use to obtain feedback on products under development. See www.progress.com/.../customer-validation-programn for more details.

It is the customer validation program (CVP). The CVP is a new community web site the Product Managers use to obtain feedback on products under development. See www.progress.com/.../customer-validation-programn for more details.

www.progress.com/.../customer-validation-program

[quote user="Oleg Kupershmidt"]

Valeriy Bashkatov  Yes, I can comment.

Our content team has done a tremendous work to launch the first version of new Knowledge Hub as a first step in modernizing our entire content delivery platform. As I can see from the comments here, there is a lot we still need to address and I assure you our team is carefully watching all your suggestions and feedback with intent to make things better. Our intent is to delight you with better experience not to frustrate you. The current version is just that, the first iteration. Consider, that we are now in a position to make improvements to the content at any time instead of waiting for the next release. You absolutely will be able to extract the information for use in offline mode. We also paved a way to better search across all content, not just user guides, but also KB articles, education content, communities, etc.

Please be patient and supportive of our content team that works hard to help you have a better experience.

I would also recommend proactive collaboration around ongoing work via Customer Validation Program (CVP).

Thank you,

Oleg

I think there is something you could do right now, that would ease our job, learning…

Modifiy the huge header.. it takes precious real state, and transfers nothing on the labour of teaching.

I think that when you are on this part of the site, and already Reading docs, you don't need readily available the Partners, Company, extra search field, and all that stuff… you could send all that to a nice hamburger menu and get out of the way of someone trying to learn….

Please fix this part asap…

Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the input. We are collecting everyone's comments and considering all suggestions. Expect the presentation of the Hub to evolve as we work with our vendor to make changes.

Not seeing much improvement yet. Do have more feedback for [mention:a0a6f41de5ca4db4a1aa018193347b3d:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] and [mention:ff19c4250db54b2cad70c7e502acff94:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] to look at:

If you open a page on the Information Hub, there's a Table of Contents, and below that 3 icons (which could use tooltips btw, but that's not my main point today) to:

- export to PDF

- share the content on social media (including Google+, which was shut down in April)

- Provide feedback on the page.

The problem is that the "Provide Feedback" is completely broken if you're using a Chrome browser at least.

Clicking it gives you a popup which has a comment box and a "provide your email" box. That box for the email address just does not respond to any keystrokes at all, but it is a mandatory input that you now cannot provide.

So if I want to quickly report that I've found a broken link, I can't do that.

Needless to say, this does not help to get this Information Hub into a useable state.

I am using Chrome and do not see the issue with leaving feedback.  Can you please close your browser and try again?

I am using Chrome and do not see the issue with leaving feedback.  Can you please close your browser and try again?

I am using Chrome and do not see the issue with leaving feedback.  Can you please close your browser and try again?

Nope, restarting the browser doesn't help.

For reference, Chrome version I'm using is:

I am also using Chrome and unable to enter my email on that feedback form.

Firefox also fails to let me type in that field.

Were you able to access this previously or has it never worked for you?  

Today's the first time I tried to use this. So as far as I can see, this never worked.

This has been reported to the vendor and they will be fixing it as soon as possible.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

I understand that the new Knowledge Hub is a first step in modernizing documentation and it could be improved. I do not understand why Progress Software is burning the bridges behind them, by not maintaining the documentation the way us, loyal customers, like it and used to have it in a form of .pdf or web form where not just a new features are listed but everything on a subject from A to Z ( from previous versions to current).

I work with Oracle and look at their 12.1 documentation. One can download a book on any subject of interest.

docs.oracle.com/.../index.htm

Progress released 12.1 too. Where is the documentation? And documentation for 12.0 is available in .pdf but without the main page start.pdf.

Also the distributed version of documentation (a hub vs a book) is leading to several pages having conflicting information on the same subject. For example

rsb-cache-size=n   The default is 1000

docs.progress.com/.../Configure-Replication-AI-Streaming.html

And on a different page

rsb-cache-size=n The default is 5000.

docs.progress.com/.../Agent-properties.html

There was some change for the default of rsb-cache-size during the development. It should be 5000.

I'll file a doc bug and get this fixed.

The OpenEdge Information Hub presents content for the latest release of OpenEdge, currently OpenEdge 12.1. You can access PDFs for previous releases (both OpenEdge 12.0 and OpenEdge 11.x) on the Bookshelf.  The Bookshelf offers the complete list of all available OpenEdge books. You can also access a PDF for an individual book by selecting the PDF icon within any topic in a book. 

The integrity of the Hub is very important to us. We will continue to enhance our content, correct any technical inaccuracies, and republish.. We appreciate all feedback so please communicate directly with our team via the Add Feedback icon available within every topic.

In the spirit of collaboration and continued improvement, we will be soliciting customer feedback through the CVP. We will prioritize your suggestions and make incremental improvements in 2020. I will post a link to a survey shortly and encourage your participation. Your comments are valuable and appreciated.

The default has been updated to 5000 from the following link:

docs.progress.com/.../Configure-Replication-AI-Streaming.html

Thanks for reviewing the doc and bringing this to our attention!

I agree, from first impressions, the new doco is not as usable. Please consider that people with a long history of using Progress know their way around the existing documentation and rely on it.

When you already know what you are looking for, having to search, just slows the process down. 

Also, HTML on-line is WAY slower to respond compared to an already open PDF.

On my desktop, I always have start.pdf open, so I can quickly go to the relevant PDF to find the answer I need. Losing this will be a big nuisance for people like me me! (30+ years developing Progress)

Just bringing back the start.pdf (like v11) would be great help.

What I misses most is the 'Adobe reader' full document search in oeidx.pdx, that searches across all pdf files and group the result by document.

If the Information hub had grouping and a much more compact preview of the search result with more results per page, then it would be great.

The 'Updated 06 Sep 2019' is in most cases lint! + Add filter updated in last xxx weeks!

Publication: ABL Reference Should be removed from result list and added to filter (filter populated with all documents where result exist after initial search)

Product: OpenEdge 12 is lint, have already selected in filter (and it would be better if filter had 'OpenEdge' 'OpenEdge 12.0' OpenEdge 12.1', OpenEdge 12.2 ...) to get result for specific version!

Format: Documentation is lint, have already selected in filter.

So in short, posibility to configure result preview:

* Only title

* Title and 1st line of result

* Title and n lines of result

[ ] Include last updated

[ ] Include publication

[ ] Include product

[ ] Include format

Group by:

* Publication

* Product

* Format

And list should be extended to 100 results per page

By the way...

OpenEdge hub on

docs.progress.com/.../Define-a-class.html  has a link to a 404

Thank you for reporting the broken link.  We will fix this -

Thank you for reporting the broken link.  We will fix this -

Here's a perfect example of why the OE12 documentation is diabolically flawed.

I wanted to check the version compatibility rules for OE12, I looked in the "OpenEdge Information Hub" and got thousands of hits for my search.

I tried google searching "openedge compatibility rules" - Great! but this takes me to "the latest" web doco which only mentions v11.7. Not what I need! :-(

documentation.progress.com/.../index.html

So back I go the the "OpenEdge Information Hub" and tried to figure out where the old "Getting Started Guide" might be. I've tried all sorts of things in the search bar.

I'm totally lost, and I still haven't got my answer!

goeldnerHQP: Is this what you're looking for? docs.progress.com/.../OpenEdge-121-Product-Availability-Guide.pdf

Anyone with feedback for Progress on the new OpenEdge Information Hub should submit it via this survey that Progress is currently running: www.surveymonkey.com/.../ProgressHub. If you haven't filled it out yet, make sure you do before they close the survey.

If what you are looking for is not in the PAG, send me the topic name from the 11.7 docs and I will locate the new information in the 12 docs.

D~