On 6 Sep 2011, at 09:12, Jörg Emmerich wrote: > Thank you both very much for your interest and encouragement
No problem. It is great that someone is interested in the docs. Unfortunately I think you could have saved yourself a lot of effort if you'd posted 6 months ago :( As you'll see from my answers below, all the issues you raise have already been handled by The Manual. I really think you need to be thinking about how to integrate your changes with what we already have rather than reinventing the wheel. > I have to admit: I did not yet look into the current release and update > process of the "getstart". Martin Spott mentioned that "latex" system > about a year ago, but to that time I planned just a pure translation, > and thus saw that as a minor problem for me. Especially I did not see a > major dependency on a "PDF"-base for my German version. Till now I saw > that relatively "blue-eyed". I suspected that might be the case. > Let me just outline my "process-environment": One guy with NO budget and > no records department, using a single PC running Ubuntu, all tools are > Multiplatform, OS, no charge: So is the toolchain for the existing manual - completely free and multi-platform. > - the HTMLs are made with KompoZer, a very nice and easy WYSIWYG > HTML-editor > - pictures are edited with GIMP > - PDFs are made by: Open the "*.html" with "LibreOffice Writer" (former > OpenOffice), convert the page-format to "Landscape" and push the > PDF-button -- and that's it. > --> see 2 examples of the output (just converted as is!): > http://www.emmerich-j.de/Handbuch/EN/B3_intro.pdf > http://www.emmerich-j.de/Handbuch/EN/B8_IFR.pdf > > On first sight those prints look pretty good to me. (The location/size > of some graphics could be relocated/sized already in the source! Maybe > even add header/footer or so - but all in all ??) > > I agree: That is a very-very "cheap and dirty" approach - I hope you can > help me finding something more adequate - based on your experiences. Easy - use the toolchain we already have! > I > mainly hang on the following questions: > > 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. (Is there an additional requirement for a > hardcopy for advertisement and or selling?) We don't sell a hardcopy of the manual but people do print it out, so it is a requirement. PDF fulfils this requirement for The Manual. > 2) What customers/users are we addressing? Till now I mainly address > - the "FGFS-newbies that want to learn" > - and the "FGFS-users that want to look up or refresh some basics" That's about right and matches the manual. > 3) Is the PDF just used for Hardcopies or also for Online-Viewing? It needs to be viewable online as it is delivered with the release and people read it on their computer. > - If just a Hardcopy the above primitive conversion could be tuned to > be good enough > -- but all the extended internal and external "linking" would be lost > in the hardcopy! > -- would we then need the old style "Index" at the end? That would be > a major effort! Indeed it was! The Manual includes a comprehensive index that we have kept up to date over the years. > - Or do we need Softcopy PDF's to distribute for local off-line > viewing Yes. We need both. > -- then all the links still show up correct - but look for a "html" > file - not a PDF. The Manual uses internal links. In the PDF they are links within the PDF, and in the HTML version they are HTML. Very simple. > So that links would have to be edited. Not if you are using The Manual toolchain. > Personally I > would guess that would not be a big effort with todays "find/replace" > possibilities. Yes it would. > 3a) or would it be easier to distribute the "Handbook" as html in a > subdirectory to $FG_ROOT/data/docs, instead of the now getstart.pdf? Is the "Handbook" the work you've done? If so - no. We would be losing a huge amount of function as detailed above, quite apart from any issues of content, grammar etc. Plus there is the whole area of long term maintainability. To be brutally honest we've already got a manual that represents a huge amount of work and maintenance and I would be loath to lose it. > The > security/copyright problems would not change, because everybody can copy > also a central HTML via todays browsers! Those browsers even have no > problem in directly printing the HTML (If e.g. a user wants only some > parts of it printed)! Maybe (in some future) that manual could even > reside (controlled) in the GIT and thus would be a compromise to the > WIKI-process. The source Latex code, build tools etc are already under Git! (We have been working on this for a number of years!) > Everybody could input at any time (in normal text) and the > responsible guy integrates that into the Manual. We already have this and have integrated a number of people's changes over the years. The only issue we've had has been that not enough people learn Latex. It is pretty easy though. > Again: I have no experience in that area and look for help. > > > One word to "Copyright" and so. After finding out how easy it is > nowadays to just copy the HTML-source from a browser and change and sell > it - I am worried what to do against it. The Manual is released under GPL so has the freedoms that implies. > Right now I guess I have some > "private protection" as the "originator". For your own content you have copyright. The content you have copies from The Manual was released under the GPL. I've no idea what licensing options you have for the combined work other than the GPL. > But surely I would like to put > it (some day?) into the "ownership" of FlightGear. In some of the > discussions here I noticed there are quite some lawyers around - maybe > someone can advise what to do. (I hope such a document must not be > GNU/GPL like: Free!). Why not GPL? -Stuart > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Offer -- Download ArcSight Logger for FREE! Finally, a world-class log management solution at an even better price-free! And you'll get a free "Love Thy Logs" t-shirt when you download Logger. Secure your free ArcSight Logger TODAY! http://p.sf.net/sfu/arcsisghtdev2dev _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
