Dan Lewis wrote:
On Thursday 24 February 2005 02:05 am, garry saddington wrote:
On Thursday 24 February 2005 06:42, Iain Roberts wrote:
Hi Dan,
I'm reviewing your doc and I've hit a problem with terminology. I
just want to make sure I understand what the words mean before I
plough on!
The title is Introduction to Data Sources and, to me, that means
accessing external sources in OOo (e.g Writer, Calc) for things
like Bibliography,mail merge, etc.
At the moment the document seems to be a good introduction to OOo
Base, covering creating a database, tables, forms etc.; but doesn't
have anything about using those data sources in other components,
except that you hit F4 to do it.
The problem for me that OOo itself isn't clear on the terminology,
so I don't know how you and I can be. For example, on the first
screen of the create database wizard, OOo gives the option of
connecting to an external "database" which could be a spreadsheet
or text file. Seems to me that "Data Source" would be more
consistent there.
All this ambiguity in OOo means that I'm trying to review your doc.
without really understanding what it's trying to achieve. If it is
about using Base, I think it might be clearer if the title was
changed. If it is about data sources as I understand them, maybe
there should be more on how to access data sources in Writer and
Calc and less on forms, queries and reports in Base (though your
guide to creating a form looks really good - if only the Form
wizard was working for me on Linux - so should at least find its
way into another Base guide, if not this one).
If you can let me know which direction you want to go down, I'll
edit appropriately.
Cheers,
Iain.
Having read this document it seems to me that much of it is
duplicating what will appear in the database guide. Do we want
duplicate documentation? Should this be edited to fit into the first
part of the database guide, using the data model and dictionary
stipulated for this guide.
regards
garry
The purpose for Introduction to Data Sources is to explain what to
do to a person who has little if any knowledge of what a database is or
how to make one. That is why there are so many screen shots.
It seems to me that the database guide, itself, would not need this
much detail. In it, the instructions should be on a higher level since
the reader would know how to make a database with its tables, queries,
forms, and reports. I doubt that what I have written would be very
useful to these people.
It was my understanding that what I wrote should go into the
"Getting Started" part of the OOo User Guide. Even in this, there is
some rewriting that needs to be done to conform it to the dictionary
stipulated for the database guide. As far as the data model, I am not
sure about this. I tried to keep the database structure simple since
the reader would be a beginner. Once such a person understood the
simple basics, a more complicated structure would be easier to
understand.
Having said all this, I am willing to make whatever changes need to
be made. Perhaps Jean or Linda could enlighten us a little on this.
Dan
I will let Jean decide but I feel we need the guide to be written as a
"Getting Started" guide. Those who are versed in dbase most likely
will not look at the guide, IMO. I know we want to have more advanced
guides at Authors but from what I have read of this guide so far this
morning it fits our need for "Getting Started".
Jean..Janet...Daniel, thoughts??
Thanks!
Linda
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