I went back through the website by clicking "Previous Topic" to find the other tutorials. I think part of why it frustrated me is that by going directly to the rst3 tutorial via an email link, I was cut adrift from the context and there were no landmarks readily available to help. Neither "Programming With Leo", nor "Using Leo as a Personal Information Manager" appeared to offer assistance to place the rst3 tutorial into the hierarchy, and while interesting, neither helped with my question about @setting trees. I eventually spotted the perfectly obvious breadcrumb trail at the top of the page and found "Leo's Tutorials" which set me on the path. This is more of a website usability issue then a documentation issue, but they do tend to work together in this case.
"The most knowledgeable, those best suited to have the answers, are in the most disadvantaged position to know what most needs writing. While those with the best view of what needs answering, are least able to respond." This is a key concept in writing. Who is the target audience? Put yourself in their shoes and then be as clear and complete as you can in making sure you don't leave any questions in their mind. I think that this is why documentation for anything is quite often a group effort. Different perspectives are required to make it effective. I really appreciate Edward's recent efforts to make Leo more accessible through improved documentation. The rst3 tutorial gets clearer with each iteration and this is a good thing. I am also willing to help if there is a need for an educated idiot with thick skin as part of the effort. Leo has great potential as the editor of choice for serious writers on Linux. There is a movement afoot that would see basic markup replacing WYSIWYG, simply because of the inherent ease of use and the flexibility in output that the current tools offer. Edward was wondering what use rendering to odt offered, it wasn't obvious to him as a programmer. It was perfectly obvious to me as a university student and writer though. Tutor markers and professors require docx. Self publishing requires ePub and everyone can deal with pdf. In my first year English Lit classes, for example, the professor wanted perfect copy and was grading on appearance. I couldn't get LibreOffice to render perfectly in docx, ie. it looked different in Word and lacking Word or Windows, I had no way to make it so. So I sent her a docx file for her to add comments to and a pdf of the papers so she could see what they would look like in a perfect world. That led me to search for something further up the tool chain so that I could write once and then publish to any format required instead of wasting time dicking around with imperfect conversions. I spent time with Latex, but there was no good way to go from there to odt or docx. Starting with odt had limitations as well when trying to render perfect pdfs. I am happy with rst and Leo now is my primary editor as I can write once and publish everywhere. And others, if they are informed of the possibilities, would be happy to hear that there is finally a solution on Linux that isn't Vim or Kate or Geany or Gedit or EMACS. They are great tools for writing text with rst, but none of them offer the outlining power of Leo. Leo is still the only outliner that offers cloning that runs natively on Linux. Chris On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 10:35 PM, Matt Wilkie <[email protected]> wrote: > > *“It is the obvious which is so difficult to see most of the time. People > say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on > your face can you see, unless someone holds a mirror up to you?” -- Isaac > Asimov, "I, Robot" 1950* > Ahh, The Documenting Dilemma. :) > > The most knowledgeable, those best suited to have the answers, are in the > most disadvantaged position to know what most needs writing. While those > with the best view of what needs answering, are least able to respond. > > These two experiential base points are a perfect match, but the joining > can be bumpy and scratchy affair, needing adjustments. > > Take it as a given that Edward is doing his damnedest to make things > easier for people to understand Leo. It is a multi-decade effort and > sharing the wealth is in the project's DNA. > > Let's also take it as a given that there are _always_ more questions than > answers. > > A mirror popped up in front of us can be a startling experience, even when > expected. > > Brevity is not the same as terseness. > > There's supposed to be a narrative weaving these thoughts together, but > it's failing to coalesce. Normally when this happens I save to draft or > relegate to the great electron recycler. Tonight though I leave them on the > table, half baked. > > Peace. Breathe. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "leo-editor" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "leo-editor" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/leo-editor. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
