> - 2.8 Drawers > - 3.2 Column width and alignment > - 3.3 The Spreadsheet (4 rather technical pages) > - 7.4 Property Inheritance and 7.5 Column View > (do beginners really need properties at all ??)
I would agree on this list (except maybe drawers). If there is room for additional sections maybe: - include the org ref card as an appendix (which in itself offers a very good overview of org) - include some pointers into getting emacs for different OSes and getting started with emacs. If there would be an O´Reilly book on Org-mode this would be in the first chapter or so. For people who started using emacs because of org (like me) the current Introduction might still be too cryptic (?) -- Matti On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 7:05 PM, Dan Davison <davi...@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > Erik Iverson <er...@ccbr.umn.edu> writes: > >> Carsten Dominik wrote: >>> Dear all, >>> >>> with the Org-mode manual moving toward 200 pages, I am >>> starting to worry that people with stop in their tracks >>> when considering Org-mode, just because of the sheer size >>> of the manual. >>> >>> So I did a little experiment. I took the manual and stripped >>> everything which could be considered advanced material, but >>> keeping all features and all basic commands and customizations. >>> >>> What remains are about 50 pages. A document with the same >>> structure (even the same chapter numbers) as the manual. >>> I am wondering if it would be useful to have this as a beginners >>> document - or if the existence of this document would lead >>> to more confusion than relief. >>> >>> http://orgmode.org/orgguide.pdf >>> >>> I don't see this a an alternative for the manual - just >>> as an additional, rather static document, with little need for >>> updates. The manual would continue to be the comprehensive >>> and constantly updated document. >>> >>> Comments are welcome. > > Hi Carsten, > > I think this would be a good thing to have. > > It would be good to have active HTML links to the relevant main manual > sections in PDF and HTML versions. (even if this is not encouraged by > texinfo format). > > I'm tempted to suggest going even a little further than you have done. > If you were to make it shorter, I would suggest removing the following > sections, and to replace removed sections with very short non-technical > advertisements for features that are covered in the main manual. > > - 2.8 Drawers > - 3.2 Column width and alignment > - 3.3 The Spreadsheet (4 rather technical pages) > - 7.4 Property Inheritance and 7.5 Column View > (do beginners really need properties at all ??) > > Dan > >> >> I think it's a great idea. The R project has something called "An >> Introduction to R" for beginners, separate from the complete manual. >> I think that as a beginner, and wondering how to break into learning a >> new package, that "reading the manual" has certain negative >> psychological connotations that "reading the intro document" does not, >> not the least of which is the length of full manual. >> >> And since knowing just the basics of org can be immensely beneficial, >> I think it's even more reason to have a basic intro document. >> >> --Erik >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Emacs-orgmode mailing list >> Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. >> Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org >> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode > > > _______________________________________________ > Emacs-orgmode mailing list > Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. > Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org > http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode > _______________________________________________ Emacs-orgmode mailing list Please use `Reply All' to send replies to the list. Emacs-orgmode@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-orgmode
