I am a big fan of OOo. My remarks below are not intended to be an
attack on
anyone. I have included personal examples of problems I have had with
the OOo
documentation. I suppose I am straying from the original topic. If so,
I'm
truly sorry.
--On Monday, October 05, 2009 09:25:54 AM +0200 Uwe Fischer
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
On 10/04/09 23:08, jonathon wrote:
Robert Derman wrote:
OOo should include a pair of manuals in the download package,
either in PDF
or ODF formats, the presence of which would be made obvious the
first time
you opened the suite.
I would not object in making the presence of the installed Help more
obvious.
At present, many users first refer to some mailing lists, forums, or
other
sources to get help, and most often they will return a "read the
installed
Help - it's all there what you're asking"
The cited response on the lists antagonizes some people. We ask our
question
because we cannot _find_ the information within the installed Help. It
may well
be there but we don't all use the right magic words to look it up.
Users who don't find the installed Help will possibly not find the
enclosed
manuals, too.
I find the installed Help just fine. It's just that I often don't find
what I
need when I look there. I also find it near impossible to find specific
information that I need from any list or forum archives. I'm sure I'm
not alone
so please be tolerant of people like me.
a) I'd suggest both PDF and ODF formats. The latter so that the user
can add notes, documentation , etc that they (the individual) thinks
is necessary/useful.
Personally useful, that is. The notes etc. may not be useful for
everyone.
The former, because it can be read regardless of platform, or
wehther or
not OOo has been installed;
These ideas sound good. Some of the online documentation is available
in these
formats. I'd also suggest adding "Manuals" or "Guides" to the menu bar
or to
the installed Help menu to assist in accessing the files that Jonathon is
suggesting and also any online documentation.
b) I'd suggest a copy of all of the documentation that OOoAuthors has
produced, for that specific version of OOo. Since that documentation
lags behind OOo releases, it might be more useful
Are you saying that the OOoAuthors documentation is more up to date?
Where is
it to be found?
So what is wrong with the main documentation page at
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation
Everything you asked is there, and much more. And every user, including
yourself, can add to that information pool.
I, for one, have no experience in updating a wiki page. I also would
not rely
too strongly on a wiki page that I had updated. It would contain
information
that I have learned by experience and it would be as accurate as I
could make
it but we all think we have learned certain things that simply are not
so.
I would also add that not all of us are as savvy as you are. Not
knowing where
to look is a big part of the problem. As for myself, online manuals in
the
format of the documents I have examined from the Documentation wiki
are not
easily searched and therefor it is very frustrating to try to use them.
I concur that there is a lot of documentation available at the OOo web
sites.
It just is not easily found or used by the novice user who needs it
the most. I
also note that the Calc 3.x User Guide is "draft" and the Draw 3.x is
"coming
soon." Part of the problem is, of course, that in particular in the
open source
paradigm the "sexy" part is updating the code while the documentation
is often
relegated to the status of the ignored step child. This is not just a
problem
for OOo.
On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 15:54, Gene Young wrote:
In what way is the help "totally inadequate"?
a) Minor, but significant for the affected population groups: Not
all localizations have translated the help file into the local
patoise.
The online documentation is no better in this regard. It is stated to be
English language documentation.
b) Content is the help file is not applicable to the current version
of OOo;
This should never be the case but unfortunately it is way too often.
And I'm
not just speaking of OOo in this regard.
please give at least one example.
c) Functions in OOo are not described in the help file.
see above
I'm not sure what you mean by that response.
d) Help files are not indexed by the expected word/phrase.
Documentation that has a table of contents and an index and that
resides in a
single file or web page would be a significant improvement so that it
can be
searched from end to end.
Ideally, every word/phrase.concept found in the help files, and./or
documentation for WordPerfect Office, MSO, GnomeOffice, KOffice, Red
Office, GoogleOffice, and Symphony will be found in the help file,
with a cross reference to the OOo name;
I'm sure that would be a major undertaking.
please provide a list, we will happily add that information to the
installed
Help.
Again, the installed Help is only one tool for enhancing one's
experience with
any product.
I possess different levels of expertise with various facets of OOo. As
such I
need to use documentation differently. I'm sure I'm not the Lone
Ranger in this
regard.
I have no idea what can be done with either Draw or Math.
Until I looked at the main documentation page referenced in your
message, I had
no idea where to look to start learning how to construct an Impress
"document."
I have used Writer to create simple text documents with fonts,
columns, etc.
but if I were a student having to write a term paper with footnotes or
endnotes, or if I were an author trying to write a book or manual, I
would not
know where to start. I also could not insert tables or illustrations
in such
documents. I've seen help given on the users mailing list to people
who are
trying to do these things and thought, "that's interesting," but the
ones who
asked the questions were already so far ahead of me that I have no
clue how to
get to the point where they are having their troubles.
On the other hand, I'm a relatively advanced user of Calc. In general,
the
installed Help is all I need _now_ to utilize Calc though I recently
learned
how to define print ranges which I had seen used but which were black
magic to
me. I thought I was looking at protected fields instead of data that was
outside all print ranges. I still don't know how to write macros.
I still have no idea how to make use of OOo through the external
application
interface (command line call with the ability to modify the contents of a
spreadsheet, for example, via a script and to direct OOo to print
selected
parts of the data and to save the revised document). I don't even know
the
right words to use to name this functionality that I know exists. Thus
I can't
find information as to how to utilize it.
You may think I'm digressing but these are examples of the issue that I
understand is being discussed. Documentation needs to be upgraded by
people who
_know_ the product. Going to the local Borders etc. or to Amazon for
books
about OOo is a lost cause. But looking online is not a whole lot better.
Thank you for bearing with me.
