So yes, the complainer (that's me) shouldn't just complain, he should become the improver. Yes, let me see what I can come up with.
On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 3:52 PM, Tim Cross <theophil...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Lawrence, > > glad you like org-mode. I also think it is a great tool. > > One of the great things about org-mode is that it is used by a very wide > range of people. I know of a couple of people who are not at all > technical who use org-mode just for general organisation and writing. It > certainly isn't something just for the 'Sheldons'. > > If you believe there are some areas of the org documentation which needs > to be improved or augmented, I would strongly encourage you to > contribute. One of the bigger challenges faced by community efforts like > org-mode is documentation. Often, those who write and develop the > solution are too close to it to write clear and comprehensive > documentation. It needs contributions from users like yourself who don't > have the low level knowledge which can blind you to higher level > usability issues. As you will see from this list, documentation fixes > and contributions are not uncommon and are certainly welcomed - in fact, > that is one of the nice things about org-mode, the extent to which > community contributions are accepted. > > regards, > > Tim > > Lawrence Bottorff <borg...@gmail.com> writes: > > > As many might gather from seeing so many of my beginner posts, I'm not > > exactly a Sheldon Cooper type, i.e., someone who has the A-ha! angel > > standing by 24/7 with her hand on his shoulder. So today I thought I'd > > upgrade my knowledge of org-mode tables. So I go to the section of the > > "manual" on tables. Experimenting on the commands, I get this fairly > > quickly: > > > > | p | q | p implies q | > > |---+---+---------------| > > | T | T | T | > > | T | F | F | > > | F | T | T | > > | F | F | T | > > > > which looks perfect in my buffer, but not so good on an HTML export, > i.e., > > the third column values seem too crowded to the left. Hence, how does one > > justify that last column to be center? Googling, I kept being directed to > > this > > <http://orgmode.org/manual/Column-width-and-alignment. > html#Column-width-and-alignment> > > page, > > which supposedly tells me how. Long story short, the A-ha! angel smiled, > > and in the end I guessed that I'm supposed to do this: > > > > | p | q | p implies q | > > |---+---+---------------| > > | T | T | T | > > | T | F | F | > > | F | T | T | > > | F | F | T | > > | | |<c> | > > > > which does in fact move the third column contents to the center -- on > > export only. But that's not the norm for me, mainly because the > explanation > > has no example. Sure, it said, *To set the width of a column, one field > > anywhere in the column may contain just the string ‘<N>’ where ‘N’ is an > > integer specifying the width of the column in characters. *But it's > really > > not so obvious that you create an extra dummy row and stick <c> in it -- > at > > least not to me. > > > > I know from math courses that a text passage can be terribly opaque -- > *until > > you get it -- *then it seemed obvious. However, I can see any beginner > with > > org-mode getting frustrated often with the Manual. And of course I can > site > > many similar examples where only the Sheldon types would get it. > > > > I guess I'm saying it would be nice to have a big omnibus O'Reilly-style > > tutorial on how to use org-mode. I've hung with org-mode because I think > > it's great and, IMHO, should become a standard tool in all > > STEM/STEM-education settings. Think of all those high schools (and even > > colleges) forcing students to use "graphic calculators." What a waste! > > > > LB > > > -- > Tim Cross >
