Re: [documentation-dev] Fwd: OO helpfile
Hi Florian I think initially when you first start using OOo you're better referring to the PDF documents or the Wiki rather than the help file as they're more up to date. I know that the Base documentation is currently being updated. Not sure if I've been of help at all. Claire On 2 March 2010 05:12, Florian Effenberger flo...@openoffice.org wrote: Forwarding this (anonymized) to this list, and pointing the original poster to it Original Message Subject: OO helpfile Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:23:54 +0800 To: Florian Effenberger flo...@openoffice.org G'day Florian, Sorry to bother you, and probably not your area of interest, but frustration drove me to it. I have been trying to get to grips with Base, and had to rely on the helpfile to get me through it. As a total beginner parts of it was confusing and other parts pointed me in totally the wrong direction. My biggest frustration related to Queries. In the helpfile it describes the syntax for entering the conditions. ie If searching for text, us ' (single quotes) to indicate text. After many hours trying unsuccessfully to get this to work (as it was the only method described in the helpfile), I finally found that this only applies if you do it in design mode. I'm sure the majority of first time users like myself would feel that using the wizard would be the easier method initially. In the helpfile there is no mention that, when using the wizard the single quotes are not required, and infact prevent the query from operating. Now that I am aware, I know what to do, but I would like to prevent many others (based on the uptake of OO) putting themselves through the same frustration. I implore you to try and get the helpfile ammended to indicate such a simple (but important) difference between the functionality of query condition entry using the design mode, and the wizard. Cheers for now! - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org -- Best wishes Claire Wood
Re: [documentation-dev] Fwd: OO helpfile
Florian Effenberger wrote: Forwarding this (anonymized) to this list, and pointing the original poster to it Original Message Subject: OO helpfile Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:23:54 +0800 To: Florian Effenberger flo...@openoffice.org G'day Florian, Sorry to bother you, and probably not your area of interest, but frustration drove me to it. I have been trying to get to grips with Base, and had to rely on the helpfile to get me through it. As a total beginner parts of it was confusing and other parts pointed me in totally the wrong direction. My biggest frustration related to Queries. In the helpfile it describes the syntax for entering the conditions. ie If searching for text, us ' (single quotes) to indicate text. After many hours trying unsuccessfully to get this to work (as it was the only method described in the helpfile), I finally found that this only applies if you do it in design mode. I'm sure the majority of first time users like myself would feel that using the wizard would be the easier method initially. In the helpfile there is no mention that, when using the wizard the single quotes are not required, and infact prevent the query from operating. Now that I am aware, I know what to do, but I would like to prevent many others (based on the uptake of OO) putting themselves through the same frustration. I implore you to try and get the helpfile ammended to indicate such a simple (but important) difference between the functionality of query condition entry using the design mode, and the wizard. Cheers for now! I agree with Clare Wood. Specifically, the Getting Started Guide contains a chapter on Base, Getting Started with Base. That is what someone unfamiliar to Base should download and use. The entire Guide should be downloaded from http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/OOo3_User_Guides. Dan - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] Fwd: OO helpfile
Claire Wood wrote: I think initially when you first start using OOo you're better referring to the PDF documents or the Wiki rather than the help file as they're more up to date. The problem is that there is little user-oriented documentation on Base. Getting Started with Base is very good and is the best place to start, but most people don't discover its existence. I know that the Base documentation is currently being updated. Being updated is over-stating the case. The Base Guide is being written, and most of it isn't even in an early draft state yet. And I don't think it's fair to say that the user docs -- especially those on the wiki -- are more up to date than the help file. --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] Fwd: OO helpfile
Jean To be honest, I'm in agreement with Florian. On the whole I've only used the help file twice since signing up as I don't find it helpful. I think in places it's too descriptive rather than giving users concise instructions about how to do what they want and I ended up reverting to a mixture of the pdfs, wiki and figuring it out for myself. I'm sure there's things I've missed as I tend to try and have a bit of knowledge about everything, rather than concentrating on one thing, which is probably where I fall down. I did have a crack at updating the Getting Started Guide (chs 1-8) on the Wiki a few weeks ago and spent a few days working on it solidly, actually testing the existing instructions to find out whether anything had changed and updating them accordingly, including screen captures, but I agree that it probably needs looking at again after the Base documentation is complete by an expert. Maybe Florian could look at that and give us feedback, as he is probably a more frequent user of Base than me. I do think that some things for Base and Calc which are written with novices/intermediate users, actually expect the user to have had previous experience with similar applications, which might not be the case. I mean just to give you a good example, there's a crisis in the UK at the moment because job centres (which are run by the Government) are great for catering for what I would call the true working class (and I hope I don't offend anyone by using that term) but aren't equipped for helping middle managers, IT workers and those from a middle class background. Instead you have to rely on agencies and they're not best equipped for helping to cross-train people in the current economic climate. Someone somewhere in this country will make a mint I'm sure by helping them. Anyway, I'm unemployed at the moment and I went into my local job centre last month as usual to sign on and had to declare that I'd signed up for this project as a way of updating my skills and my portfolio. Even though the UK Government has made a commitment to some opensource applications, the people in the job centre, who are government workers, not only didn't know what open source was, which took me aback, but they'd never heard of OOo, so I had to explain what it was and that it was an alternative to MS Office Suite. The person I was talking to had hardly used MS Office, nevermind any other application, so I suggested to him to have a look in his spare time and gave him the OOo address. On a slightly lighter note, which you might find hillarious - I certainly did and I'm sure anyone else in the UK would find it equally funny. They wanted me to get a form signed by OOo to say that I was a volunteer. (You have to declare that you're working voluntarily and not getting paid so that it doesn't affect your benefits while you're searching for work.) I had to explain that it couldn't be done because the person that would need to sign it was probably on the other side of the world! It served to show that systems in this country need to be dragged into the 21st century and account for people using the internet. Regards Claire Regards Claire On 2 March 2010 05:57, Jean Hollis Weber jeanwe...@gmail.com wrote: Claire Wood wrote: I think initially when you first start using OOo you're better referring to the PDF documents or the Wiki rather than the help file as they're more up to date. The problem is that there is little user-oriented documentation on Base. Getting Started with Base is very good and is the best place to start, but most people don't discover its existence. I know that the Base documentation is currently being updated. Being updated is over-stating the case. The Base Guide is being written, and most of it isn't even in an early draft state yet. And I don't think it's fair to say that the user docs -- especially those on the wiki -- are more up to date than the help file. --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org -- Best wishes Claire Wood
Re: [documentation-dev] Top 25 Technical Writing Blogs
Hi All re Facebook. Someone wants to try getting everyone to join the one group. There's no way that you can share with everyone unless you join all 75 groups which defeats the object really, but such is life. On the whole, I think Facebook has quite a few issues to address at the moment, not least server performance. BBC News recorded that there were access issues in the UK last week and most people used twitter to complain! Something I do find amusing - using a competitor to get your point across. At least with Twitter you only have 2 lists to follow re OpenOffice.org; at least I've only found 2 so far, and it is easier to post a link, whether it be to a site hosting video files or articles, etc. Also the techies in social media land tend to use it alot more for support issues as there is a quicker response time. I mean just to give you an example... I was on a RoboHelp course last month and I was tweeting with the Adobe Evangelist whilst on the course about the shortcomings of the software that we were experiencing and he was very quick to reply! lol Claire On 24 February 2010 13:28, Clayton ccorn...@openoffice.org wrote: On 02/24/2010 07:07 PM, Drew Jensen wrote: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Template:AddThis ...and one lttle nit-picky thing..(you know there was going to be one of those with me..right) The Oracle logo...well, just look for yourself http://www.facebook.com/dj.son.of.gus I shared a wiki page and let it display the logo...yuk H. I wonder what Facebook is picking up on to display the Oracle logo instead of the main OOo logo... and why it's got a really really ugly dithered background behind the Oracle logo C. -- Clayton Cornell ccorn...@openoffice.org OpenOffice.org Documentation Project co-lead - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org -- Best wishes Claire Wood
[documentation-dev] I'm new have some ideas for the how-to's
Hey everyone. I am new to the mailing list so please let me know if I am missing something or doing something wrong. I run the site easy10seconds.com, which is a video how to site with the idea of supplying short free videos for others to link to. I have 3 OOo right now; Calc, Writer Impress. (http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Video/OpenOffice.org) I am starting off small and simple and just making short how-to's of the commands in action. Tutorials will most likely come later, but there are usually enough full tutorials out there already. My idea right now is to see if integrating these small videos into a text tutorial might be beneficial to an end user learning the software. For example: Say the section of the how to is talking about fill a range of cells with data any word could then be hyperlinked to this video: http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Fill-a-Range-of-Cells-with-Data/video This would allow the user to be able to read over the hyperlinked word if they already know it or click on the link if they would like to see an example of this being done. This could be done for a number of commands or actions, anywhere from Insert a Column 11 seconds (http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Insert-a-Column/video) To Combine Data from Cell Ranges 16-seconds (http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Combine-Data-from-Cell-Ranges/video) I am open to suggestions am willing to put in some time to help make more videos if people find it helpful. I have a few more ideas that people might be interested in, one is a quiz or software Training that makes use of these Video Hints in an interactive quiz like format. You can try it out on the home page bottom right (http://easy10seconds.com/) or specific ones: Photoshop (http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/Photoshop-CS4/25/33) Flash (http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/Flash-CS4/59/40) PowerPoint (http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/PowerPoint-2007/19/13) I have a calc one that I will be putting out on the site this week or next week. Let me know your ideas. Thanks, -Josh - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] I'm new have some ideas for the how-to's
On 3/2/2010 11:50 AM, Josh wrote: Hey everyone. I am new to the mailing list so please let me know if I am missing something or doing something wrong. I run the site easy10seconds.com, which is a video how to site with the idea of supplying short free videos for others to link to. I have 3 OOo right now; Calc, Writer Impress. (http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Video/OpenOffice.org) I am starting off small and simple and just making short how-to's of the commands in action. Tutorials will most likely come later, but there are usually enough full tutorials out there already. My idea right now is to see if integrating these small videos into a text tutorial might be beneficial to an end user learning the software. For example: Say the section of the how to is talking about fill a range of cells with data any word could then be hyperlinked to this video: http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Fill-a-Range-of-Cells-with-Data/video This would allow the user to be able to read over the hyperlinked word if they already know it or click on the link if they would like to see an example of this being done. This could be done for a number of commands or actions, anywhere from Insert a Column 11 seconds (http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Insert-a-Column/video) To Combine Data from Cell Ranges 16-seconds (http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Combine-Data-from-Cell-Ranges/video) I am open to suggestions am willing to put in some time to help make more videos if people find it helpful. I have a few more ideas that people might be interested in, one is a quiz or software Training that makes use of these Video Hints in an interactive quiz like format. You can try it out on the home page bottom right (http://easy10seconds.com/) or specific ones: Photoshop (http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/Photoshop-CS4/25/33) Flash (http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/Flash-CS4/59/40) PowerPoint (http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/PowerPoint-2007/19/13) I have a calc one that I will be putting out on the site this week or next week. Let me know your ideas. Thanks, -Josh A tutorial I would like to see would be a definitive, detailed guide for employing Writer with master documents for creating books and such. Master documents is a major area where Writer compares unfavorably with Adobe FrameMaker. Having a solid tutorial with master documents, possibly with macros, user source files, and sample templates added would be a nice addition. Such a tutorial would need to employ much of the functions that OOo has. If any writer or team of writers and editors wants to author/edit such a tutorial, I would volunteer as its lead technical editor. Gary -- Gary Schnabl Southwest Detroit, two miles NORTH! of Canada--Windsor, that is... Technical Editor forum http://TechnicalEditor.FreeForums.org LinkedIn profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/garyschnabl Elance profile http://www.elance.com/php/profile/main/eolproviderprofile.php?userid=1892120catid=100edit=truefrom=myelance
Re: [documentation-dev] Fwd: OO helpfile
Hi all, please feel free to submit issues regarding the installed Help using Issuezilla: http://qa.openoffice.org/ooQAReloaded/ooQA-ReportBugs.html If you don't speak Issuezillanean you can e-mail your issue to me. As an exception you may post the issue on this mailing list. Unfortunately, we must limit our efforts to improve the installed Help in a way to keep word count low. Therefore it is so important to have good and extensive guides on the web, for example, on the Wiki. We try to include links in the installed Help that lead to good instructions on the Wiki. Everyone can write and edit documents on the Wiki, the results are available instantly and can be translated by OOo volunteers as they please. Uwe -- u...@openoffice.org - Technical Writer StarOffice - Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Hamburg, Germany http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/ http://blogs.sun.com/oootnt http://www.sun.com/staroffice - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
[documentation-dev] Change of address for Authors mailing list
Effective immediately, the Authors mailing list has been moved to a new home, auth...@documentation.openoffice.org This move is necessary because user-faq is no longer a supported/valid project and will not be included in the move to the new hosting infrastructure for OOo. All current subscribers have been copied over to the new list. You do not have to resubscribe. However, you may need to change your email filters to ensure you receive messages from the new list. Apologies for the inconvenience. Please do NOT use the user-faq address any more. The old list will remain available for posts until 31 March, after which it will be locked down against new postings, and subscribers will be removed. I will be updating the links from the OOoAuthors website and anywhere else I can find that points to the user-faq address, but if you spot any I've missed, please let me know. Archives for the original list will be preserved, though at this point we're not sure exactly where. There may be a period of time in which they are not available. --Jean Jean Hollis Weber Co-Lead, Documentation Project, OpenOffice.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] I'm new have some ideas for the how-to's
Linking from the user guide chapters in the wiki sounds good to me. Some links have already been added (not by me) from the UGs to other tutorials and items on the wiki or on other websites. (When I see them, I check them to make sure they are legitimate and not spam.) I'm not sure I like the idea of linking words or phrases within a wiki page instead of adding a see also section at the end of a page, but I am definitely in favour of the general idea. Because anyone can update the wiki, these links can be added and updated relatively quickly and easily. Putting links in the user guide PDFs would be more work (and would probably be more out of date) because the PDFs are generated infrequently from the source ODTs. --Jean Claire Wood wrote: Can I ask... Are you planning for these links in the pdfs or wiki guides? I'm not sure whether Jean Co would be keen on external links being in the pdfs, but I don't know, you'd have to check with her. I'm currently working on a Base mid-level tutorial document with Mariano Cassanova and it seems like a good idea. I was going to have a crack at an accompanying video for it myself because I'm quite interested in doing some elearning tutorials, but overall it seems like a good idea. Claire On 2 March 2010 10:50, Josh j...@delcore.us wrote: Hey everyone. I am new to the mailing list so please let me know if I am missing something or doing something wrong. I run the site easy10seconds.com, which is a video how to site with the idea of supplying short free videos for others to link to. I have 3 OOo right now; Calc, Writer Impress. ( http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Video/OpenOffice.org) I am starting off small and simple and just making short how-to's of the commands in action. Tutorials will most likely come later, but there are usually enough full tutorials out there already. My idea right now is to see if integrating these small videos into a text tutorial might be beneficial to an end user learning the software. For example: Say the section of the how to is talking about fill a range of cells with data any word could then be hyperlinked to this video: http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Fill-a-Range-of-Cells-with-Data/video This would allow the user to be able to read over the hyperlinked word if they already know it or click on the link if they would like to see an example of this being done. This could be done for a number of commands or actions, anywhere from Insert a Column 11 seconds ( http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Insert-a-Column/video ) To Combine Data from Cell Ranges 16-seconds ( http://easy10seconds.com/How-To-Videos/OpenOffice.org/Calc/Combine-Data-from-Cell-Ranges/video ) I am open to suggestions am willing to put in some time to help make more videos if people find it helpful. I have a few more ideas that people might be interested in, one is a quiz or software Training that makes use of these Video Hints in an interactive quiz like format. You can try it out on the home page bottom right (http://easy10seconds.com/) or specific ones: Photoshop ( http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/Photoshop-CS4/25/33) Flash ( http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/Flash-CS4/59/40) PowerPoint ( http://easy10seconds.com/Demo/PowerPoint-2007/19/13) I have a calc one that I will be putting out on the site this week or next week. Let me know your ideas. Thanks, -Josh - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
[documentation-dev] Any way to change size of checkboxes etc in forms?
Is there any way to change the size of the checkboxes, option buttons, and other symbols used in form controls? I haven't been able to find it, but when using a checkbox (etc) in a form with large type in the text, the size of the checkbox is very small by comparison. I hope I'm just missing something... --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] Any way to change size of checkboxes etc in forms?
If you are using Adobe LiveCycle Designer (cs3 for me) you can change the point size on the checkbox to any size you wish. Alan On 3/3/2010 4:10 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: Is there any way to change the size of the checkboxes, option buttons, and other symbols used in form controls? I haven't been able to find it, but when using a checkbox (etc) in a form with large type in the text, the size of the checkbox is very small by comparison. I hope I'm just missing something... --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] Any way to change size of checkboxes etc in forms?
Um... this question was referring to creating forms in OOo Writer. We're documenting OOo, so it's pretty irrelevant what an Adobe product will do... especially one that doesn't run on Linux. --Jean deleeuw3 wrote: If you are using Adobe LiveCycle Designer (cs3 for me) you can change the point size on the checkbox to any size you wish. Alan On 3/3/2010 4:10 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: Is there any way to change the size of the checkboxes, option buttons, and other symbols used in form controls? I haven't been able to find it, but when using a checkbox (etc) in a form with large type in the text, the size of the checkbox is very small by comparison. I hope I'm just missing something... --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] Any way to change size of checkboxes etc in forms?
ok. although usually i find there are cross-platform similarities in design. Alan On 3/3/2010 5:50 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: Um... this question was referring to creating forms in OOo Writer. We're documenting OOo, so it's pretty irrelevant what an Adobe product will do... especially one that doesn't run on Linux. --Jean deleeuw3 wrote: If you are using Adobe LiveCycle Designer (cs3 for me) you can change the point size on the checkbox to any size you wish. Alan On 3/3/2010 4:10 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: Is there any way to change the size of the checkboxes, option buttons, and other symbols used in form controls? I haven't been able to find it, but when using a checkbox (etc) in a form with large type in the text, the size of the checkbox is very small by comparison. I hope I'm just missing something... --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
Re: [documentation-dev] Any way to change size of checkboxes etc in forms?
Hmmm does Adobe LiveCycle Designer actually let you change the size of a form control checkbox? I can't recall if MS Word does it. If I use a checkbox symbol that isn't part of a form control (that is, just a symbol from an ordinary font, not a form control), I can make it any size I want. But not a form control checkbox. --Jean deleeuw3 wrote: ok. although usually i find there are cross-platform similarities in design. Alan On 3/3/2010 5:50 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: Um... this question was referring to creating forms in OOo Writer. We're documenting OOo, so it's pretty irrelevant what an Adobe product will do... especially one that doesn't run on Linux. --Jean deleeuw3 wrote: If you are using Adobe LiveCycle Designer (cs3 for me) you can change the point size on the checkbox to any size you wish. Alan On 3/3/2010 4:10 PM, Jean Hollis Weber wrote: Is there any way to change the size of the checkboxes, option buttons, and other symbols used in form controls? I haven't been able to find it, but when using a checkbox (etc) in a form with large type in the text, the size of the checkbox is very small by comparison. I hope I'm just missing something... --Jean - To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@documentation.openoffice.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@documentation.openoffice.org
