On Mon, 4 Apr 2005, Lars Clausen wrote: > Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2005 23:03:06 -0700 > From: Lars Clausen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: discussions about usage and development of dia > <dia-list@gnome.org> > To: discussions about usage and development of dia <dia-list@gnome.org> > Subject: Help Dia without touching any source code! > > [This deserves a little more mention that a BTW in another post] > > If you like Dia, and would like to contribute something back, but don't > feel you know enough C or Python to code something, there are many other > ways to help us improve Dia:
First off, making a list like this is certainly a good way to encourage people. > * Helping out with the web site. I have neither time nor skills to > do anything really good for the web site. If you do, you could > help Dia get a much more professional-looking site. I think the easiest thing might be to try and use the Gnome.org stylesheets (or a subtle variation of them). I think putting some of the content, the FAQ specifically, into a Wiki would be a good idea. Not sure though if it would be approrpriate to add it to the Gnome Wiki: http://live.gnome.org How safe would it be to use the wiki that you set up for Dia? http://faemalia.org/wiki/view/Technical/DiaEditor Using the gedit page as an example I went ahead and created a space for Dia under the "Module Maintenance Workspaces" section. http://live.gnome.org/Dia > * Helping reproduce/narrow down/confirm fixes of bugs. > Bugzilla.gnome.org has our bug database. Many bugs are waiting > to be confirmed or usefully reproduced, or our fixes tested. Next weekend I will try and take another look at building from CVS or your snapshots and see what I can do to reduce the bug count. http://www.raeder.dk/~larsrc/Dia/snapshots For what its what Abiword has a nice bug graph and seeing the visual impact of bug triaging can be helpful motivation. http://www.abisource.com/buggraphs/ Is there anything we can do to reduce the amount of duplicate bug reports that RedHat has accidentally inflicted on Dia? > * Update info on Dia in software databases. Dia is mentioned in a > number of places, and many have some sort of program info (e.g. > sourceforge, gnome.org). These need updating to spread interest > in Dia and attract more contributors for an even better program. I try to maintain this Dia page http://advogato.org/proj/Dia/ and I have also tried to add to this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dia My freshmeat username is horkana and I do seem to be able to add myself so if you want to add me I'll try and help with the Freshmeat page for Dia http://freshmeat.net/projects/dia/ Might not hurt to make it editable by all registered freshmeat users. The freshmeat admins will still moderate it in case you're worried. I tried to make the Inkscape page about Dia http://www.inkscape.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Dia point out the strengths of Dia (that are relevant to Inkscape) perhaps others will add more. Now that you have mentioned it I will point my journal entry about Dia. http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/diary.html?start=189 It is difficult to find time and get in the habit of writing regularly but I want to try and write about Dia and mention any interesting things I've found or discuss recent improvements. > * Find and report bugs. When you find a misbehaviour in Dia, you can > report it at bugzilla.gnome.org. If you think "surely somebody > already reported this", check out > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/reports/product-mostfrequent.cgi?product=dia > * Update the documentation. This would help many a new user. Any areas in particular? I've been meaning to do a little more work on this but I find myself wanting to overhaul parts of the user interface rather than document it as is and try to change it later. > * Make nice examples of what Dia is used for (to go on the web page, > see the first item). We're seeing more and more neat usages, > a collection of them would be nice. I occassionally take screenshots of Dia http://matrix.netsoc.tcd.ie/~horkana/dia/ but I do not have any really nice diagrams to show off, so I suppose I should encourage users to submit sample diagrams somewhere. It could be useful as both a test suite and a gallery of sorts. I think it might be possible to put the Dia screenshots page in a Wiki to allow for easier updating. > * Translate. We have an excellent group of translators, and Dia is > currently translated into 49 languages! But more translators > are always welcome, in particular non-Indoeuropean languages are > weakly represented. We only have one African language so far, > for instance. A mail to gnome-love or gnome translatoin might help spark some interest. In fact it might be a good idea if you were to forward your message to the gnome-love-list and actively solicit new developers. > All this should go on the web site along with info on how best to > approach it, but see the first item:) Sincerely Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/ Inkscape http://inkscape.org Abiword http://www.abisource.com Dia http://gnome.org/projects/dia/ > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list > FAQ at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/faq.html > Main page at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia _______________________________________________ Dia-list mailing list Dia-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/dia-list FAQ at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/faq.html Main page at http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia
