Hi Dave,
What you are saying about the upgrade makes sense. I will put the
reviewed chapters in with the 6.0 guides.
It is helpful to know some of the background on the Help files. I will
combine my response to you with my response to Olivier.
Unfortunately, my question was not clear. I was asking about names and
descriptions in the program itself, not the Help files. As an example,
"Load with user settings" is just not clear. Re-wording could specify if
it is talking about the current user or the previous user. It might be a
relatively simple fix or it might not be. I don't know. But if it is, it
seems like a no-brainer that would make the program more user friendly.
Thanks again,
Cathy
On 7/26/2017 5:26 AM, Dave wrote:
On 26.07.2017 03:08, Cathy Crumbley wrote:
HI All,
I just uploaded a review of Chapter 2 of the Writer Guide and would like
to share a couple of thoughts.
It can take many words to explain a relatively simple concept when
wording in the program itself is unclear or even misleading. Is there a
mechanism for giving feedback to the developers about changing some of
the wording within the program? If so, how does that work?
What is the relationship between Help and the Guides? It sounds like
they are on two separate tracks. Are they duplicating information
independently?
Cathy
Hi Cathy,
Thanks very much for working on this. I note that you have put your
files into the LO Authors 5.3 Writer Guide "Feedback" folder. Jean
Hollis-Weber put a fair amount of time and effort into drafting a number
of the chapters for what was to be the 5.3 Writer Guide, but since we
are now working on the 6.0 guides, it seems highly unlikely that the 5.3
edition will go to publication.
I have now created the "Draft" and "Feedback" folders for the 6.0 Writer
Guide. Could you please retract (delete) your chapters 1 & 2 files from
the 5.3 "Feedback" folder and put them into the 6.0 "Drafts" folder for
review.
As to raising the issue of unclear or even misleading wording in the
help files, my _*guess*_ would be, that for very specific entries in the
help files you could raise an issue on Bugzilla:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/QA/BugReport
or contact Oliver for assistance.
Always keep in mind the help file is intended more as an "aide memoire"
for users who have some measure of familiarity with the software, rather
than a detailed guide. Obviously, there will be some of the same content
in both, but since they serve a different purpose and a different kind
of readership they are not duplicating information. My personal opinion
is that the In-Built Help and Documentation should never become one and
the same. As a long term, relatively experienced, user of the software
there I times when I look to the help files for short simple pointers to
help me get something done. There are way too many software packages out
there that force me to dig through a mountain of irrelevant "guff" to
find those short simple pointers.
Traditionally the In-Built Help and Documentation were handled
separately. Comparatively recently the project management decided to
bring both under the umbrella of the documentation team. As I mentioned
in another post, Oliver has done a lot of work to make it easier for
people not familiar with the help system file structure to work on the
help system. For more information go to:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation
and look at the various "Help" related entries under the "HELP PRODUCE
documentation" section.
Best Regards
Dave
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