Re: SM (and Tunderbird) needs a full fledged manual.

2011-06-25 Thread Joe Rotello

On 6/25/2011 3:20 AM, support-seamonkey-requ...@lists.mozilla.org wrote:

On Fri, 24 and 25 Jun 2011 , Rostyslaw Lewyckyj And Philip Chee discussed:

  SM needs a full fledged manual.

Thunderbird is crowsourcing a manual. Looks quite impressive.

http://blogs.mozillamessaging.com/docs/2010/12/08/thunderbird-floss-manual-done/
http://en.flossmanuals.net/thunderbird/
http://en.flossmanuals.net/firefox/

Phil


One main trouble with these manuals, be they crowdsourced or not, 
although the idea has good merit...


Does this/these apparent new Thunderbird, SeaMonkey or Firefox manuals 
cover up to, say, Thunderbird 3.1.11 or at least 3.1, SeaMonkey as of 
2.1, or Firefox as of 5.0 ?


Just wondering, as so many of these manuals or instructions we see were 
not updated or published last since late 2010 or so.


Far FAR too much has changed for many manuals to be of real value to 
most users ?


Joe
Skype: joerotello
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Re: SM (and Tunderbird) needs a full fledged manual.

2011-06-25 Thread Bill Davidsen

Joe Rotello wrote:

On 6/25/2011 3:20 AM, support-seamonkey-requ...@lists.mozilla.org wrote:

On Fri, 24 and 25 Jun 2011 , Rostyslaw Lewyckyj And Philip Chee
discussed:

 SM needs a full fledged manual.

Thunderbird is crowsourcing a manual. Looks quite impressive.

http://blogs.mozillamessaging.com/docs/2010/12/08/thunderbird-floss-manual-done/

http://en.flossmanuals.net/thunderbird/
http://en.flossmanuals.net/firefox/

Phil


One main trouble with these manuals, be they crowdsourced or not,
although the idea has good merit...

Does this/these apparent new Thunderbird, SeaMonkey or Firefox manuals
cover up to, say, Thunderbird 3.1.11 or at least 3.1, SeaMonkey as of
2.1, or Firefox as of 5.0 ?

Just wondering, as so many of these manuals or instructions we see were
not updated or published last since late 2010 or so.

Far FAR too much has changed for many manuals to be of real value to
most users ?

My thought is that the developers are simply changing things too fast for 
documentation to keep up. So even if there was a person to do the work, unpaid 
developers feel zero responsibility to notify the document maintainer of 
changes, because they don't feel like it and nothing bad will happen if they don't.


That's not a complaint, it's an explanation. I have asked for documentation on 
writing themes for... since 1.0.6, and gotten answers like no time, read the 
code, it changes a lot, and similar. Manuals are bigger projects, and the cost 
of tracking a dynamic project by reading the code is too high for free time and 
too expensive for paid work.



Joe
Skype: joerotello



--
Bill Davidsen david...@tmr.com
  We are not out of the woods yet, but we know the direction and have
taken the first step. The steps are many, but finite in number, and if
we persevere we will reach our destination.  -me, 2010


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