Description
This book teaches C, C++, and Visual Basic programmers how to write effective error messages that notify the user of an error, clearly explain the error, and most important, offer a solution. The book also discusses methods for preventing and trapping errors before they occur and tells how to create flexible input and response routines to keep unnecessary errors from happening.
Full Description
Although the computer industry has made enormous advances in the last 25 years, the development of error messages has somehow been left behind. Error messages themselves have only progressed from reporting errors as numerical codes to popping up rather simple text messages. The vast majority of the error messages that are currently in use seem to be aimed more at the programmer than the user. It is, however, the user who utilizes the software applications that contain the error messages, and the programmer needs to consider this when writing error messages.
This book focuses on three elements that should be incorporated into any proper error message: notification, explanation, and solution. Many of the error messages that are in use today lack one or more of these important traits. Throughout the book the author uses examples that illustrate incomplete error messages contributed by various sources and then describes how to make them more effective. The book also contains methods on preventing and trapping errors before they occur and provides details on creating flexible input and response routines to keep unnecessary errors from happening.
In addition to providing detailed information about how to improve the utilization of error messages,
Windows Error Messages also covers important topics such as:
- Popup menus
- Rich text format messages
- HTML messages
- Simple and sophisticated event logs
- Reporting data to technical support
- Online documentation
The accompanying CD-ROM contains a dynamic link library, ErrorMessage.DLL, that is accessible by VB, C, C++, and MFC programs. This DLL contains routines that, when called by the programmer, will present all error messages in a standard format and provide responses for different levels of errors. This will reduce the time programmers will need to spend calling and creating dialogs for error messages, allowing them to concentrate on the code at hand. The ErrorMessage.DLL has been created by the author using Visual C++ along with the MFC AppWizard, and the source code for the program has been granted to the public domain.
With the help of
Windows Error Messages, C, C++, and Visual Basic programmers will be able to write consistent error messages that notify the user of an error, provide an explanation of the error, and most important, supply a solution to the error.
Colophon
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animal featured on the cover of Developing Windows Error Messages is a basilisk. Basilisks, members of the iguana family, have a limited range from southern Mexico to Ecuador. Adult male basilisks have distinctive casques on their heads and crests on their backs. Excellent swimmers and divers, basilisks occasionally hide on the bottom of bodies of water. Perhaps the most amazing thing about basilisks is that they have the ability to run across water. Using only their hind legs, and moving them extremely quickly, they slap the water, creating an air pocket below the surface, then lift their foot before the air pocket collapses. They can move across water surfaces at a rate of up to 12 kilometers per hour. Since this is faster than swimming, it affords them protection from hungry marine animals.
Although these creatures are harmless (except to the small animals that they eat), the name basilisk was also given to the mythical king of the serpents. That fierce creature was usually depicted with the body of a snake and the head of a cock. It would kill anything that came in its path with just a glance. The breath of this monster was said to be so foul that it would wilt vegetation and crumble rocks. The only way to kill a basilisk was to hold a mirror to its eyes. Upon seeing its own reflection, it would die instantly. Edie Freedman designed the cover of this book, using a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. The cover layout was produced with QuarkXPress 3.3 using the ITC Garamond font. Hanna Dyer designed the CD label. Whenever possible, our books use RepKover™, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. If the page count exceeds RepKover™'s limit, perfect binding is used.
The inside layout was designed by Nancy Priest and implemented in FrameMaker by Mike Sierra. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book. The screen shots were created in Adobe Photoshop 4.0 by Robert Romano. This colophon was written by Clairemarie Fisher OLeary.
