I'm trying to absorb all the messages, and have to say that this is very stimulating.
I would emphasize that this intro is a test balloon, and at least for the moment I want to focus on trying to fix the fixable rather than simply abandoning it. In that regard, Andreas's comments are most welcome and worth working on. This may end up showing us what any Master Pages need to look like. I began this already aware of the arguments against a manual, but still felt it worthwhile since many if not most are more philosophical than demonstrated. The interesting thing is to see how much easier the wiki is as a cooperative effort than this manual. The manual it seems shows you while you might consider having a meal made by a number of chefs, you wouldn't want a number of chefs working on a single course. In fact, we might well see how different "chefs" prepare different parts of the manual. There have been discussions about what comprises "good" design, and conceivably a manual might demonstrate some principles many could agree or disagree ;-) upon. 1.3.3.x versus 1.3.4+ My feeling is that if we target 1.3.4+ for the manual we are trying to make it for something not fully functional. There was general agreement that even when 1.2.x became outmoded, there was value to the tutorial in its original state. Like the tutorial, I don't see the manual as being targeted to the most advanced user or cutting edge versions. Aside from that, since this will be an "open source" manual, it can be updated whenever desired or necessary. One can take a version and "fork" it at any time. Wiki versus Manual While we might think that there is some "pot" of energy out there, from which we can ladle either into the Wiki or the Manual, I disagree. We all see times when we have boundless energy, other times when we seem to get nothing new done. Some creative tension like we're seeing here /can/ be invigorating, and there is no reason why the Wiki and Manual cannot feed off each other in that regard. Greg
