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Tuesday, March 18. 2008

Need it now, find it quick -- the new SAS online doc

With the release of SAS 9.2, the SAS documentation that accompanies the software has never been more accessible. See for yourself: check out the product documentation for SAS 9.2.

Type in a few keywords in the search pane. I just tried "filename http" -- the top link, describing the FILENAME URL access method, was just what I was looking for.

This is the culmination of years of work to transition SAS' primary documentation medium from printed books to electronic documentation. I am proud to have played a small part in the early days of this -- it was about 12 years ago that I smuggled the SAS Companion for Windows into the online help system for SAS on the PC -- that was in the late days of version 6, early version 7. I've been out of that biz for a long time, but the progress has continued steadily.

The new library of online documentation is a huge leap. I talked to someone last night who still keeps the version 5 manual on his shelf because it contains the whole of SAS documentation as it was at that time. I appreciate the nostalgia, but I think from now on I'll keep my documentation in my web browser.

Posted by Chris Hemedinger in SAS support at 10:11 | Comments (3) | Trackback (1)

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I've been watching the Web 2.0 world for post-Global Forum activity. So once you've finished watching all of our great conference footage, you check out this sampling of conference attendees who blogged about the event:The Data Steps blog shares a code ti

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Tracked: Mar 24, 11:11

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Congradulations Chris on the book! I read it, good stuff. By the way, this is one of your relatives back in south Florida. I hope all is well buddy.

#1 Alexander Hemedinger (Homepage) on 2008-03-20 13:07 (Reply)

In the previous format clicking "Macro" on the left opened the macro documentation. In the new format clicking "Macro" opens a list of 27 documentation topics with Macro on the second page, all the other items being irrelevant. This is not easier access.

In general, at a first glance, there are far more clicks and waits between http://support.sas.com/cdlsearch?ct=80000 and actual information than in the old style. I haven't tried the search facility yet. However, my first take is that the change is a disaster.

I've alway liked the way SAS puts complete documentation on the Web. I still do, but it's going to be more trouble to use than before.

#2 Jonathan Goldberg on 2008-04-07 14:36 (Reply)

Jonathan, thanks for the comments. I've passed your comments on to the folks in charge of the online doc; they might be in touch with you to gather some more feedback.

#2.1 Chris on 2008-04-08 09:35 (Reply)

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ABOUT CHRIS

Chris Hemedinger is a senior software manager in SAS R&D. He's part of the team that builds SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office. He's also co-author of the popular SAS for Dummies book and moderator of the SAS Enterprise Guide discussion forum.

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