Hi Cathy Em 25/07/2017 22:08, Cathy Crumbley escreveu: > What is the relationship between Help and the Guides? It sounds like > they are on two separate tracks. Are they duplicating information > independently?
I'm glad you raised this question. Yes they are separated tracks and contents duplication is a fact, at least partially. Help pages are instance of web on-line pages, and guides are instances of printed books. Different form factors for different usage. The Help is part of the software and is invoked when you press F1 or click on the Help button in a dialog. Because it is part of the application, the following applies * It is a flat and factual description of the feature, eventually with examples and use cases. Its objective is to help users to get the job done. * The Help pages are translated into all released languages (currently 68 languages). * It must contain the most accurate information on the features of the software. * Is must be indexed for easy referencing and search. However, not everything is actually true... * Translation of the Help depends on volunteers, which have limited time available for the task. This however does not prevent us from releasing new versions, but with unfinished translations in some cases. * A significant part of the Help is also a user guide, which overlaps with the current Guides we have. However, editing Help pages and inserting it into the Help system is way more complex than writing/updating a text document in Writer, as we do for the guides. I'd like to discuss the contents of the Help User Guide and see if the Help system needs to get leaner. * The help system is poorly illustrated, almost everything is textual with very few images and no videos. * Because of the way the software is developed, LibreOffice developers don't write software specification paperwork, and new features mushrooms in the code, with no documentation or help page associated (with rare and much appreciated exceptions). Many new developments as well as changes in the user interface are not documented yet in the Help, which means the Help is lagging with respect to the software. We are however collecting these gaps in a list and looking for volunteers to write about. What prevents us to evolve with the Help, and find something more easy for volunteers to contribute? * we must absolutely preserve its current contents and translations process, people don't like useless rework. * We don't have a replacing technology that can in a finger snap, make all the legacy content available to a more user-friendly editing process. My last blog post addresses the issue. https://goo.gl/j3DVAG There will be a workshop in Rome, at our LibreOffice Conference where we will discuss these issues and more. I hope to meet all authors involved. http://conference.libreoffice.org/ Kind regards -- Olivier Hallot LibreOffice Documentation Coordinator Comunidade LibreOffice Rio de Janeiro - Brasil - Local Time: UTC-03:00 http://tdf.io/joinus -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
