On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 08:50, Italo Vignoli <[email protected]> wrote: > Jean Weber wrote: > >> The Writer Guide for 3.4.x should be done within a few days. We are >> not attempting to do 3.4.x versions of the other books (can't keep >> up). We may not get many done for 3.5.x before 3.6 is out (can't keep >> up). In fact, we're not even trying to have a full set of guides for >> each version (can't keep up). There is a pattern here! ;-) > > > Hi, I'm not a documentation expert, and I don't think I'll ever become one, > but on the other hand I understand that keeping up with a fast release cycle > might be a nightmare. > > Is there anything that we can make at Board of Directors level in order to > ease the process? Apart, of course, from slowing down the release cycle... > which would be the most obvious answer. > > Please do mind that in two weeks we will have the Hamburg Hackfest, and I > will bring with me a number of "to do" items to discuss with hackers. > > Of course, this doesn't mean that we will come out with an answer for > everything, but I think it is worth trying.
One reason that updating the v3.3 books has been taking so long is that we've been trying to find and fix errors and omissions that arose from doing them so quickly at the beginning. The Getting Started and Writer Guides are now much improved, and the Impress Guide is quickly getting there, so I hope that keeping them up to date for new releases can now be done more quickly. We've been talking about two possibilities, each of them involving *not* attempting to update everything for each release. 1) Only update chapters where significant changes are required (UI looks very different; major new features; corrections to errors). In most cases, most chapters need only trivial, or no, changes to keep them current, although the writing in some of them can still be improved. 2) Combined with 1), only attempt to release a new version of each book once a year. But the main problem is that, although we have many people who say they are willing to do proofreading (copy-editing), that's not much help unless there are enough people who (a) know how to review the content for accuracy; (b) can use existing info (such as the list of new features) to know what to look for and incorporate changes when needed; and (c) have the time to do the updating and writing, to get things to the point where copy-editing (proofreading) is useful. I don't think the Board can do anything about that. And recruiting more Docs Team members has mixed results: see paragraph above. --Jean -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/marketing/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
