Jörg Emmerich wrote:
> 1) I am sure that most of our customers/users today rather read/search
> online in a WIKI and/or Forum - but I also see that some people still
> prefer a hardcopy to study.
>From my perspective the difference between a Wiki and a Manual is not
so much about the format of distribution, instead it's a matter of
being more up to date in contrast to having a structured document ....
whereas it would be preferred to have a structured document which is up
to date :-)
> 3) Is the PDF just used for Hardcopies or also for Online-Viewing?
Both ;-)
BTW, given the fact how little support there is for building structured
and consistent documentation for FlightGear I think it's really sad
having two competing efforts, both targeting the same audience, instead
of joining forces.
More than a decade ago LaTeX was chosen as the source format for the
Getting Started Manual for different reasons: First, the quality of
typesetting in its formatted output on the printer or in PostScript/PDF
was unchallenged in OpenSource land and it still is. As an additional
feature LaTeX allows you to export the document into almost every
format you could think of (and maybe even more), including but not
limited to HTML and PDF.
Last but not least, and this is a really important point, LaTeX allows
you to maintain the document as if it were just source code. It's just
plain text, it's almost as easy to write as HTML, it allows adding
incremental changes, thus you don't have to load a large document just
to fix a typo, it allows everyone to track these changes and submit
their own changes and it allows easy versioning using the tools we
already have. The Manual has been available via CVS and later via GIT
for years - that's collaboration made easy for everyone who's concerned
about it.
.... you're guessing right: I'm seriously asking why we should drop
our current Manual in favour of a different one which probably has the
same amount of drawbacks, just different ones.
Cheers,
Martin.
--
Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are !
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