Jim,
I'll provide a bit of an explanation with apologies in advance for a long post.
jstartin wrote:For new users, especially the less "technical" that I think Hert is trying to attract
It might help you and others to understand that I'm one of the less technically oriented people that Hert is trying to attract. Despite that I wrote the IDimager Version 5 Workbook, I have never been a power user when meeting my own cataloging needs. I never used any of the scripts stored in the repository. I never mapped catalog labels. I never displayed custom information on my thumbnails. I still know absolutely nothing about how databases are made to work. You get the idea.
I distinctly remember when I first came across the issue of having to "relocate" a folder in V5 because it was very confusing to me. I had no idea what was going on. Dirk Schiphorst had to explain to me what "relocating" meant in the context of using the software. In fact, when I made my Workbook available, I felt that if prospective buyers could see that it clearly and easily explained what "relocating" a folder was all about, they would surely come to believe that it could explain anything else about how to use IDImager. So, that part of the Workbook is the part that I made available to everyone for free.
some obscurity might be better than any ambiguity (if that makes sense)
Based on the struggles that I had while learning how to use IDimager, I have to disagree. Moreover, I believe it's entirely reasonable to believe that all obscurity and ambiguity can be eliminated. So, I see no reason to accept the compromise that one of them might be better than the other one.
as long as an explanation can be easily found in "help".
The understandable problem with all DAM software is that it is necessarily so complex that an effective Help section becomes so large that it will never be easy to find an explanation of everything. As an example, the IDimager manual is about 500 pages and the Help screens are the same as the pages of the manual. Yet when I conduct a search of "relocate" in the V5 Help section, despite that seven screens are returned, not one of them explains how to relocate a folder.
One reason I have refrained from trying out Supreme until it becomes further developed is that it becomes immediately clear after a review of its Help section that much information is not explained there. I hope that section will be greatly expanded. I'm doubtful, though, because the Help section explicitly says that Tips displayed within Supreme are "your primary resource for getting help," not the Help screens themselves. Indeed, there is no way that I have found to conduct a search of Supreme's Help screens. The only explanation that I have found of relocating catalog folders in Supreme is provided only in the context of migrating to a new computer. Even that explanation is located within the section about maintaining the catalog, which is illogical to me because moving a catalog to another computer isn't a maintenance function, just as moving a suitcase full of clothes from one car to another has nothing to do with maintaining it.
Even worse than ambiguity or obscurity, is inconsistency.
Absolutely! Having said that, I am very sympathetic that lacking the use of professional translators who are probably prohibitively expensive, it is going to be exceptionally difficult to use all terms accurately and consistently in the various languages that Supreme is produced in. Add to that that many users will select a language that is not their native language. Even when the terms are used accurately and consistently, those users will understandably get confused by their own misunderstanding about what a certain term really means.
This whole issue of the use of terminology and documentation reminds me of when I first took a look at DigitalPro before learning about IDimager. I learned very early on that Its documentation inaccurately explained how to conduct a search of images containing two keywords; the search that was was explained returned all images containing either of the two keywords, not both of them. I immediately stopped considering DigitalPro and have never reviewed it since then. That's because I felt that if their documentation that explained something so simple and so important was completely inaccurate, I could only imagine how difficult it would be to wade through the explanations of the more esoteric aspects of using the software. I was a first-time DAM user, so this issue was very important to me. I'd hate for first-time DAM users to have a similar experience and to react to Supreme as I did to DigitalPro.