ehimmer

Definitely needed... We had one on our original website, but when we set up the latest website, we never got around to it... primarily because we didn't like the design all that much (too hard to maintain) and are now in the process of again redesigning the website with better tools for maintaining it. We want to provide a much better educational experience than we have now (which is nil), including videos, template repository, FAQ and a forum.

Hi Marc, As with most software vendors I assume, we all think we try to anticipate the inspectors' needs. I am constantly surprised as to how diverse inspectors' ideas are on how to create reports fast and efficiently. We learned that early on with our original WhisperPI product which was very restrictive. Hence we came out with WhisperReporter with the idea to not lock it into a particular style. Like using light gray for cloaked text... we all thought it was fine, perfect... but after five years, an inspector finally came out to say "you know... it would be helpful if..." I think many people are accustomed to software companies being a huge black hole for ideas (myself included), so they just don't ask or just hope someone else asks, leaving the software company to create a ton of options (substantiating an increased price) that no one needs or uses and an interface hard to navigate IMHO (think Microsoft Word). Sorry, I digress... moving on... I'm probably walking a thin line here in the forum, and don't want to promote our own software, but let me just say in response that we are natively narrative and don't force a style of input. We simply offer a checkbox feature or "tool" so-to-speak, among many other alternatives, for those who prefer to use that in certain situations and usage, such as with the mandated Texas TREC format or using a tablet in the field. Great idea about a manual of style. I would love to see an online community blog or wiki used to compile something like that. I think it would have extremely useful content especially for new inspectors, and could boost creativity! Who knows, it might even help to sideline state mandated form styles like they have in Texas. But now I'm contributing to this thread going off topic... sorry.

Hi Norm, Thanks for giving WhisperReporter a test drive. Yes, sorry about the documentation. I agree wholeheartedly that the documentation is pretty bad... also very out-of-date. That will be addressed very very shortly. I try to let inspectors answer the questions in the forums for both as a courtesy to vendors who do advertise on the site and also to adhere to the rules, as I want to be careful that I don't step over the line as to what vendors are allowed to say. But Nolan mentioned your questions and asked to share my thoughts... Some monitors display gray darker than others... it is usually a contrast/brightness setting. However, the cloaked text color can be changed quite easily by us... we've just never exposed the ability to inspectors. Why not? Honest, no one has asked for it until now. We could make it as easy as it is to change the locked text color (Edit > Locked Text Display Color). I'll see if I can get it in for the next release since it is a simple change. The next version will also have an improved text wrapping experience when switching from the default "position image as a character" to something like "wrap text left and right" for example (which makes the image a "floating" image). We've corrected the initial movement of the image to the far left when switching the positioning mode for one thing, and added an option to allow auto adjustment of the floating image at a page break to prevent it from being pushed off the bottom of a page while trying to maintain its position relative to the start of a paragraph when it starts at the bottom of a page. We've also recently been asked to allow the default to be a floating image instead of always initially setting it as a character for positioning. This will be a configurable option. With all that being said, most inspectors seem to create a two column borderless table... one cell containing the image, and the other cell containing the text describing the image. This can help to maintain a consistent layout throughout the report. As for the topic checkbox showing a hand with a pencil instead of a checkbox - this sounds like perhaps you don't have wingdings installed on your PC? Does the same thing happen when you add a comment checkbox to a comment? (the toolbar has a insert checkbox 2nd to the left of the picklist button) As Nolan pointed out, you can change the checkbox style in Setup > Preferences > Checkboxes tab, but I'm curious as to why you are seeing this problem. We can connect into your computer remotely if you can't get this to work, and can take a look. Thanks again,