How likely are you to recommend the Windows Holographic documentation to a friend or colleague?

JayAb

https://dev.windows.com/holographic/documentation

DougF

At this point, not at all likely. The documentation that's available publicly consists of a few vague pages and some programming walkthroughs that may or may not work if you can find the right bits. As for what you just posted, it's an internal server not accessible to proles like me.

DougF

@DougF said:
As for what you just posted, it's an internal server not accessible to proles like me.

My bad, the domain is publicly registered and managed by Microsoft's servers. I first checked on Microsoft-test.com. It's just that devx.microsoft-tst.com doesn't point to anything in DNS.

DanglingNeuron

Will recommend because its the only source right now. However, the structure is somewhat clunky. I had to make a list of all pages/links (child links) to ensure I don't miss any and still stay on path.
Content is good but only on an initial introduction level. Of course later on we will see more detailed concepts, code snippets, and full examples. I will be starting my own tutorial series once the emulator is available.
It also doesn't help that neither the Unity version with HoloLens support - nor the HoloLens emulator is available with the documentation.

Missing Content: there are several instances of something like this - [[File:SR MixedWorld 140429 8pm 00068.png|thumb|upright=.5|alt=Example of scanning|Example of scanning a room]]

james_ashley

As long as it's the only source of information about developing for HoloLens, there's nothing else to recommend. It could be extremely good or extremely bad and it wouldn't matter since its the only game in town.

That said, I think the documentation is pretty good. The overlapping coverage between docs, samples and videos is great and lets people learn in whatever way is best for them.

There's also a good deal of insight into designing for AR spread throughout the instructional material that is amazing when you discover it.

Bryan

The one thing I'd like to see is a more complete single-page index to scan. Some subjects are hard to find again since they're not listed on the root index page.

Jimbohalo10

My main problem is the pages are not linked at the bottom to either go back to home page or go to the next topic on the list. Currently you need to use the back page of your browser

james_ashley

@Jimbohalo10 true. You have to pogo-stick to navigate through the docs. That's been a web architecture no-no since about 2006. The peer-to-peer navigation should really just show up on the sidebar or something.

Brandon

@DanglingNeuron said:
Missing Content: there are several instances of something like this - [[File:SR MixedWorld 140429 8pm 00068.png|thumb|upright=.5|alt=Example of scanning|Example of scanning a room]]

Thanks for noting this problem. It has now been fixed.

Brandon

@Jimbohalo10 said:
My main problem is the pages are not linked at the bottom to either go back to home page or go to the next topic on the list. Currently you need to use the back page of your browser

This is helpful feedback. We'll spend more time adding additional "See also" links. We're intentionally not creating a topological sort structure of the content -- there is no TOC. Instead, it's just like Wikipedia -- related content is linked where appropriate.

Bryan

@Brandon said:

@Jimbohalo10 said:

...We're intentionally not creating a topological sort structure of the content -- there is no TOC...

I'd vote for creating a TOC, even if it doesn't have a full topological sort structure. At this point I have no idea if I've read everything, or if I forever skipped over something hidden under one of the links I held off on clicking while reading the rest of the page the link was on.

james_ashley

Isn't this basically a TOC?

I think the docs do have a topological structure as well as a TOC but for whatever reason you aren't acknowledging that you do. This is causing both web architecture issues as well as user confusion.

Also the topics are long so the cross-linking gets confusing. Instead of going to another page when I click on a key word, I just get taken to an anchor in the same page (this especially happens in the Spatial Mapping article). Again, the confusion occurs, I think, because the docs don't fully commit to being either one thing or the other -- topological or hyper-textual.

Brandon

Back when I was a kid, I read all of Encarta. So I totally get the achievement desire to read everything. For a few reasons, I just haven't found the time to read all of Wikipedia these days.

In the modern experience, people reach content primarily through search and secondly through topic pages, e.g. portals. Wikipedia is exactly like this. Real TOCs rarely exist, and most everything that looks like a TOC usually falls into decay. The documentation page is a portal page -- it's organized for getting you started in the right place.

Not everyone is motivated to read every page, but for you I've posted a list of all the pages as of now to facilitate your desire.

james_ashley

Lol. Okay. You obviously know more about how people want to read documentation than we do, @Brandon. Thanks for the feedback.

Brandon

@james_ashley Happy to help, and we do appreciate the feedback. We're making updates to the documentation all the time based on the questions. And we may reference Wikipedia a lot... the infrastructure we're using is based on MediaWiki.

Bryan

@Brandon said:
Not everyone is motivated to read every page, but for you I've posted a list of all the pages as of now to facilitate your desire.

Awesome! Thanks, @Brandon !

marty80

I'm deaf and passionate about mixed reality. Unfortunately, videos such as these:
https://dev.windows.com/en-us/holographic/academy

has no captions (auto captions are inaccurate, so they're no good). Could you add English captions on them?

Otherwise as a developer I have much trouble getting started developing for HoloLens, but I really want to develop for it.

wintermoot

The DESIGN documentation provided (mainly the HCI guidelines) has been incredibly useful. I've shared this with fellow interaction designers and the content really gets at the core of what it takes to make great hololens experiences. Whoever wrote these is awesome, thank you!

The only comment I have is that the findability is low (until all academy articles are indexed). Saying, 'go to the main docs page' isn't enough for my less passionate friends. I've had to circulate a LONG list of URL's and highlight the good ones (Gaze, Gesture Voice, Spatial Mapping Design, etc).

I was also able to find a few orphaned articles (mainly the academy ones) by using the footer links, so thanks for these. I think some folks might think the documentation dead ends at certain stops when actually there are additional articles linked elsewhere that go into more depth.

Lastly, it's really interesting to see where VR has informed the hololens HCI guidelines. There are also places where hololens had to tackle problems that are not found in non-additive VR like designing for spatial mapping UX. However, some practices are applicable to VR, but haven't made their way back into that community yet. For instance scaling a gaze driven cursor based on depth or using cursor states to provide gesture readiness feedback. Hopefully the cross functional info will become less siloed when more devkits are in the wild.

Jimbohalo10

I have read https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/all_pages.
What may be good is to put a link to the page as "Windows Holographic Complete Index" with the link to https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/all_pages at the bottom of the previously discussed
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/holographic/documentation
page.
Thanks

CoreyGoff

@marty80 said:
I'm deaf and passionate about mixed reality. Unfortunately, videos such as these:
https://dev.windows.com/en-us/holographic/academy

has no captions (auto captions are inaccurate, so they're no good). Could you add English captions on them?

Otherwise as a developer I have much trouble getting started developing for HoloLens, but I really want to develop for it.

This is GREAT feedback. We're looking into this now.

Lance

The Holograms 101E tutorial desperately needs an update. Have someone start fresh (not on a machine that was used to create the tutorial) and you'll easily find the problems.

First, the version of Unity3D (5.4.0b10-HTP) that the Hololens docs point to (it should be 5.4.0b10), which forces you to import the Origami project in an unsupported mode.

Then after importing Origami and following the tutorial, it wont compile (SpacialMapping.cs is trying to use an event handler that doesnt exist, which cascades into other files that require SpacialMapping.cs). There are several other placers where it won't compile when Building for VS export (Fitbox.cs is one)

Lance

larsonmattr

I think the installation instructions could use a bit of work and should bring the reader to the point of having built and run a working Hololens project in the emulator OR an actual device (I would love one of those!!! So sad that I am wave 4).

After struggling for a week, here are my instructions from installation to completing the build of Galaxy Explorer and successful deploy. (http://forums.hololens.com/discussion/387/finally-got-a-working-galaxy-explorer-demo-here-is-my-full-instructions#latest)

• Matt Larson

elmer

Not likely because we're beyond Q1 and many of us in wave 1 are still waiting for email with ability to order our dev kits.

Jarrod1937

@elmer said:
Not likely because we're beyond Q1 and many of us in wave 1 are still waiting for email with ability to order our dev kits.

I think they only started shipping wave 1 folks 14 days ago (March 30th). Considering they're shipping them out as they're made, I don't think they're doing too bad. Though, I'm with you, I'm wave 2 and can't wait to get my hands on it, I have some interesting ideas, but patience my friend ;-)