On 3/4/2010 8:04 AM, Claire Wood wrote:
Sorry, I'm a bit confused - probably as a result of travelling alot
yesterday, getting home late and being extremely tired today.
Are you proposing to change Writer so that you can incorporate something
similar to the way Framemaker applies Master Documents to a Page Layout
design and the Book features that Framemaker has, so you can add files and
then generate an automatic TOC and control your numbering, cross
referencing, etc centrally? Then from that to build an onscreen tutorial to
tell people how to use that functionality?
Don't forget though that alot of the tweaking especially when Framemaker
builds books is done in the Reference Page, where the format for the TOC,
Index, any other things you use regularly in the document are defined.
Scripts are added there too. Writers can also use the Reference page as a
dumping ground.
Claire
What did you mean with your question about changing Writer? Did you mean
changing the Writer user guide or did you mean changing Writer itself
via its use of macros? Actually, both are applicable.
The master-documents chapter in the Writer guide could be adapted for
use as a mini-tutorial itself if a collection of a few simple chapters
were parked online and being available as source documents for its
master-documents chapter, along with a completed folder containing the
files for a successful minibook example. This exercise could show how
basic master documents work in general.
However, an additional, standalone user guide (or tutorial) of both
master documents and macros at an intermediate to an advanced level is
better than complicating the Writer user guide. A standalone manual of
these more involved topics can be extended, making it somewhat open
ended. Having it included as an appendix to the Writer Guide would be
inappropriate due to both its size and learning-curve effort expected of
their users.
As it is, the Writer Guide treatment of both macros and master documents
is not deep enough for advanced-level projects involving those topics.
Thus, an intermediate-level tutorial in this advanced manual could be
devised whereby users would take our own edited chapter files and gain
an expertise making their own Writer user guides or Calc user guides,
etc. Another tutorial could deal with using (or creating) macros and
such for extending the Writer component for increasing its usefulness.
As is, Writer does not compare well with standard Adobe FrameMaker for
creating large documernts, which can be further extended through its use
of FrameScripts and by utilizing the FrameMaker Development Kit, which
can modify the FrameMaker GUI itself. So, creating and further expanding
another OOo user guide could expand the use of Writer into mostly
uncharted waters, for the vast majority of its users.
Gary
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