Hi pygmee, thank you for your user manual history! It was indeed an interesting read :)
I'm on the inkscape-web team (who took advantage of the existing mailing list here), so I cannot say anything about links in the program's help menu - but I would certainly like to see Nico and Elisa's introductory manual linked from the French version of the website. We only have the old, outdated, English version (http://en.flossmanuals.net/inkscape) linked, from this page: https://inkscape.org/en/learn/books/ :-( Has there been anyone showing interest to make an English translation of this really good, user oriented, 172 pages long (but French) document? Some translators might prefer to translate from English to their own language, that's why I ask ;) For those who don't understand French on this list: The focus of that new document is a user-oriented approach, not aiming for completeness - like Tav's book, which is a much more technical description - but enabling users to start having fun with Inkscape, and to remove the obstacles many of the beginners run into when they first 'meet' Inkscape. I like both kinds of manuals - they complement each other very well :) If you'd like me to, I could ask among the translators' team, if someone would like to / can help with translation to English (although a few of them, of who I know that they speak French, are already the authors ;) ). I would think that an English version is a precondition for any manual to be included into Inkscape's menus (not that I know anything about this). We could also make a news article for the website, if that would be of any help in searching for translators. If someone from your team would like to write one, chances are 100% that it will be published on the website :) We can then also forward the info to Josh, who manages our social media accounts. A more theoretical question: Would Elisa or someone else from FLOSSmanuals some day want to brave a second effort of organizing people for Inkscape Docs? To make a manual which aims for completeness, *and* user-friendly-ness? That's a huge task, I think, though... and it could also use some help from the developers, for a few of the more complex functions that are still undocumented. (I'd volunteer to help with German translations and proof-reading - but those are only at the *veeery* end of the chain of any manual...) Thank you again, for all that info, pygmee. It would be so cool if this would result in a free, and easily accessible manual for Inkscape (and thanks to Elisa and Nico for writing it, of course!!!) Kind regards, Maren Am 22.06.2015 um 22:20 schrieb pygmee: > Hi all > > it’s good to see new threads on this list which to be quiet for a > long time. As myself, Prokoudine and Yemanjalisa were previously > involved in an Inkscape User Manual, I think it can be interesting > to share our past experience in this process and why we failed in > having it as an inkscape community project. > > First I was doing a manual for Sodipodi, so I found natural to go on > with Inkscape after we forked. At this time wiki were not as well > known and there was a wish to use an XML technology (you know, this > SVGish language!). Benchmarking other documentation project, i found > Gimp’s one was good, based on Docbook, with many output capacities. > > Later, few people came up and many found Docbook to hard to learn > just to build a documentation. > > In the meantime, changes in Inkscape were very numerous and it was > too hard to keep the manual up-to-date. One thing we managed to have > at this time was getting a good description of new features and > changes (not only bug titles displayed in list). This helped a lot > and developpers are now going on in the release notes, even if it > sometimes decrease. > > Two main things made the "official" manual fail at this time : - it > has never been linked in Inkscape Help Menu, some arguing that > Tutorials were enough and some that Tav's book was enough, depending > on their point of view. I irced a lot with BByak or JonC but we > didn’t get the link. - Inkscape team migrated to launchpad in a time > we were out of the process, so that we had the bad surprise to see > that the manual had been forgotten and that noone had energy to > rebuild it even from archives. Rules to write access changed and i > was not elligible anymore… > > This approximately when Flossmanuals came with a Google rent. The doc > team had a few days meeting in Paris to write another documentation > using their process. Pygmee (myself), Prokoudine, Yemanjalisa, > JFacemayer were involved and we got some results with help from some > other contributors, especially, this made Jazzynico join our team and > then the dev team. > > Actually it seems that this manual stayed a foreign project and that > nobody had the idea to link Inkscape to it, and that the manual > didn’t evolve. The french part of the team has been quite active : - > we have a complete introduction to inkscape : > http://www.flossmanualsfr.net/initiation-inkscape/ (GPLv2) - > Yemanjalisa and Jazzynico have wrote an inkscape book that is now > released under free license that is going to be put on the FM website > asap > > All this content, and others, might help build a new User Manual. > There are also many content we all have or we can find on the web. > > I think the real problem is not in content, it is not in technology > neither. The main thing to do is to define the goals and get > organized. FlossManuals has now a large experience in this process. > Especially yemanjalisa who get to manage about 20 manual writing > process about several free software (puredata, arduino, blender, > scribus…). The general approach is to give readers the key to > understand the software (not just show how to do this or that with a > somewhat progressive way). I still think it is important to have a > link from within inkscape (many people still don’t know how to use > correctly a search engine) : this is just a python script to > customize but someone would have to commit it > > > For the best pygmee > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! > OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors > network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & > sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. > Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o > _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing > list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
