Stephen,
> I have already joined OOo authors and downloaded
> all the appropriate background material and how tos.
> I'm ready to go! My user name is canadianwriterman.
Great! I've given you the author role, so you can get started.
I think the most valuable thing you can do right now is to test
the published chapters of the OOoV2 guides against the latest
version of the software (beta2). Many chapters were written with
reference to much earlier builds of V2, and in some cases changes
have occurred since then. Some screenshots may need replacing,
and some instructions may be wrong.
If you want to do this, here's how:
1. Pick one of the published pre-release chapters for the Getting
Started, Writer or Calc guides and download the .sxw version of
it. If a file is marked "visible" instead of "published" in the
Status column, that means someone else is working on it.
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/gettingstarted/draft_pub/folder_contents
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/writer/draft_pub/folder_contents
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/calc/draft_pub/folder_contents
2. Continue as described in the Instructions for Reviewers
section of this page, starting with step 2, Retract the chapter:
http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/resources/howto_review
* Using the OOo V2 software, go through the instructions in the
chapter you're reviewing. Follow the instructions exactly as they
are written, so you can see if anything is different between the
instructions and the software. If possible, make corrections
where needed (be sure to enable record changes), or leave a note
that something needs to be rewritten.
* Pay close attention to the screenshots. If anything is
different, make a note of it. If you can capture new screenshots
that will match the ones in the chapter, then you can replace the
out of date ones with up to date ones. If you can not match the
existing screenshots, then leave a note in the file that "figure
x needs to be replaced".
* Of course, if you spot any mistakes, or inconsistencies, or
other copy-editing issues, please fix them too.
* You're also very welcome to suggest other changes to make the
chapters more readable, but bear in mind that major restructuring
will probably have to wait until the next version of the books
(later this year). We've got quite a collect of enhancement
ideas, which one of these days I will collect into some semblence
of order.
If you'd like to write a chapter, or finish writing an incomplete
chapter, let me know.
Once again, thank you and welcome aboard!
Cheers, Jean
