Hello all,
I'm updating the English translation of the Base Handbook from 3.5 to
4.2, and have run across a problem concerning which I'd appreciate some
advice and feedback.
In Chapter 3, "Tables," the section following the heading *Creating
Tables/Creation using the GUI* begins as follows:
"Database creation using the GUI is described in detail in Chapter 8,
"Getting Started with Base," in the /Getting Started with LibreOffice/
book. Therefore only the main sources of error are described here."
The problem is that [the first sentence of] that statement is just plain
false.
The GUI offers two ways of creating tables: Use Wizard to Create Table
and Create Table in Design View. The /Getting Started/ chapter only
provides instructions for using the Wizard. The Wizard only provides
database templates with preexisting table and field names. If you want
to design a database for any purpose other than the ones that the
templates cover, it's useless.
So far as I can tell, there are no instructions provided anywhere in our
documentation on how to create a table in Design View, which seems to me
to be the method that most users are likely to use. (I could well be
wrong about this, but if those instructions exist, they aren't located
in the most logical place to look for them.)
Moreover, the /Getting Started/ chapter explains only how to create a
flat, single-table database. (I'm not sure why you'd want to do that
rather than just use a spreadsheet, but . . . .) The material in the
handbook, on the other hand, assumes that you're building a relational
database with multiple tables.
The reason I can't just ignore the problem is and go on is: The section
that follows this introduction contains some new material in the German
that needs to be translated. Translated super-literally, it doesn't make
much sense. Good technical instructions are directed at the particular
situation in which the user is going to need those instructions and
tailored to the user's preexisting knowledge. That context is exactly
what the current text doesn't provide, and what I need in order to put
this stuff into comprehensible English.
Any and all advice appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan
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