Hi Everyone, (sorry, this is a little long) I agree with all Maren's points. Having a manual written by a team, with a free license, which allows it to be edited in the future, is a good idea. I certainly would volunteer to help with that.
Tav's manual is awesome, but as someone who answers a pretty large share of questions in forums (and occasionally LP Answers and the User list), it seems that many people have looked at it, and found it not helpful. Over and over and over again, questions are posted in forums, which are easily answered in the manual, except that the user somehow has not understood it. I guess some of them are lazy, and didn't look at it, but I can't believe that they all are. I think Inkscape could find a whole new group of users, with a manual that has more of a step by step approach. I made an effort (a while ago) at starting a manual, based on a step by step approach. I had seen some requests from a couple of different people for tutorials or a manual that people with with ADD or ADHD can understand. (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as far as I understand them, are both childhood learning disabilities, and often outgrown, but it seems that more and more, people make it to adulthood, without outgrowing it, and need help with reading.) The step by step approach is very helpful for this group, apparently. Even though that group (of adults who never outgrew their learning disorder) is probably very small, I still think a step by step approach in a manual would introduce a lot more people to Inkscape. Plus, having a free license, and a team to write/edit it, the load doesn't fall all on 1 person. And the manual can evolve and change, as needed with new versions, without delays. Too bad I can't read French. I would love to see that manual! I also agree about the need for tutorials, but I don't think tutorials can take the place of a step by step manual. Well, not unless the tutorials all follow a similar format and use the same terminology (as if written by the same person or group). This community has produced.....hundreds, and probably thousands of tutorials, over the last 5 years. Only a fraction of those are what I consider "good". I've seen Inkscape tutorials calling nodes "points", for example. So unless there is some "quality control" over all these many tutorials, they can't take the place of a manual, in my opinion. All best, brynn -------------------------------------------------- From: "Maren Hachmann" <ma...@goos-habermann.de> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 10:29 AM To: <inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-docs] User Manual history > Am 23.06.2015 um 03:46 schrieb Alexandre Prokoudine: >> On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:07 AM, Maren Hachmann wrote: >> >>> 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? >> >> Having participatied in the making of the first one, I still have to >> ask: why would it be superior to Tav's one? >> > > For licencing, reuse and collaborative editing reasons - sharing the > work to make keeping things up-to-date easier, maybe even asking > developers to document their new features, or changes to features, > themselves, being the ones who know most about them. > > And then allowing others to edit that info, to make it accessible to the > average user, in case the language is too technical / not written by a > native speaker. > > Also for allowing offline usage or even shipping with Inkscape. > I might be a little old-fashioned in that respect, though, in that I > like to be able to use a manual offline, too... > > But as I said - it's a more theoretical question, I don't expect it to > happen. Maybe it's possible to instead support Tav somehow, then? > >> The way I see it, not having yet another complete user manual is a >> non-issue. What the community does need is tons, tons of high-quality >> step-by-step tutorials how to design good-looking works of art. But >> for that to happen you need to find people who are actual artists and >> get them to write that stuff. Not an eas thing to do. > > - Yep, I agree, tutorials are a great resource - I love your site and > visit it frequently :) Thank you very much for all the work you invest > into this! > > Kind Regards, > Maren > >> Alex >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> 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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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
