Using AI for SharpCap information

[oopfan]

In my work I use ChatGPT a lot in software development. It saves me a lot of time. I wondered how useful it would be for using SharpCap.

Me: "How are you gathering information about SharpCap?"

ChatGPT: "I’m looking up the most current SharpCap information from public, official, and reputable online sources in real time.
That includes:

Official SharpCap website and release notes – for feature lists, version changes, and manuals.

Developer blog / “What’s New” pages – for detailed descriptions of new tools and updates.

Trusted astronomy publications – like Astronomy Technology Today or vendor documentation for related hardware.

Occasional videos or tutorials from established astrophotography educators, when they’re directly relevant.

I don’t have any private or insider feed from SharpCap—everything I use comes from public web pages I retrieve at the moment you ask. That’s why I can include the exact links and dates for where the info came from.

If you want, I can also limit my search only to SharpCap’s official documentation so the details stay strictly vendor-verified. Would you like me to do that next time you ask about it?"

Me: "Some people have complained about the relevancy of the official documentation, some saying that it is over 2 years old. Do you scan SharpCap's user forum?

ChatGPT: "I can scan SharpCap’s user forum if you’d like—since it’s publicly accessible, I can pull in current discussions, bug reports, and user-shared workflows.

The difference is:

Official docs & release notes → Good for definitive descriptions of features, but often lag behind real-world use and may indeed be a year or more out of date.

User forum → Much fresher, with hands-on examples, troubleshooting threads, and tips that sometimes appear days after a new feature ships—but also mixed quality, since posts are from many different skill levels.

If you’re okay with the occasional “less polished” explanation, scanning the forum can reveal hidden capabilities, undocumented fixes, and workarounds that aren’t in the manuals.

If you want, I can run my next SharpCap query with both:

Official release notes for baseline accuracy

Forum threads for fresh, real-world context

Do you want me to pull the latest forum chatter on SharpCap 4.1 features so you can see what people are actually saying about them?"

I think it might be worth giving it a try; it can save you reading time.

[admin]

Interesting... does it give you stuff that is useful and up-to-date from the forums? I had to move the forums and the main website behind CloudFlare a few weeks back because of a DDoS attack hitting multiple phpbb based forum sites. As part of the CloudFlare protection, there is a certain amount of AI scraping blocking going on too...

I have considered trying to get one of the AI models to re-draft my posts on the forums into documentation style as the start of an update to the user manual - it would be cool if it worked as most of the information needed is already on the forums, just scattered around and written in a different style.

cheers,

Robin

[oopfan]

Robin,

AI can absolutely help speed up documentation work, but it’s important to think of it as a co-pilot, not an autopilot.

The forum is full of great info, but it’s also full of setup-specific advice, outdated threads, and the occasional misunderstanding. If you feed all of that straight into AI without curating or verifying, the docs risk becoming inconsistent or even inaccurate.

The sweet spot is letting AI do the heavy lifting of drafting and organizing, while a human reviews for accuracy, adds real-world context, and makes sure the tone matches SharpCap’s voice. That way, the docs stay both up-to-date and trustworthy.

Brian