Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
Hi :) I think the immediate one to work on is the Base Handbook rather than the full guide. I agree that reading the single chapter in the Getting Started Guide might help prepare you for Base. https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications The first book there has a chapter to introduce each of the modules/programs/apps within LibreOffice. The Base Handbook is much shorter than the full guide so it might not go into as much depth as you'd like but it is good to get a broad overview before getting tooo bogged down in too many of the intricacies. Also it is currently being updated quite significantly so it'd be great to do proof-reading for the chapters as they get completed. It is the Handbook that is in most need of proof-reading at the moment. If you manage to catch up with the translation-update then going on to the full guide would help gain a much deeper understanding. The full guide is more of a longer-term project and is being written from scratch by Dan Lewis. Errr, this guide might help you work with the published guides; https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development Hopefully someone might register you at ODFAuthors while you are reading through that. Many thanks and regards from Tom :) On 8 September 2014 15:41, Joel Madero jmadero@gmail.com wrote: Hey Tom, Well there really is no consideration per say. If you want to help, we'd love to have you assisting! That being said - I'm not terribly familiar with where to begin in documentation. Perhaps someone else could give the first steps and get you started. Thanks for offering to volunteer. Best, Joel On 09/07/2014 09:41 AM, Thomas Taylor wrote: I would be interested in assisting with the documentation for base, primarily the proofreading. I don't currently use base (or any database) and feel that this would help me to also understand the concepts and utilization of this portion of LibreOffice. I use both Linux and Windows although primarily Linux. I have been a moderator for the LO mail-list for about a year and wish to contribute more. I am a retired engineering technician (electro-mechanical) and have been involved in producing user documentation and technical manuals for the medical and automotive fields. Thanks for your consideration, Tom Taylor -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
Hello Tom T., Welcome to the team! I'm a volunteer (at the moment, the only one, it seems) working on updating the Base Handbook. I'd like to supplement the information that Tom D. has provided you with and let you know how you might start out getting involved with the project. As Tom indicated, the Base Guide and the Base Handbook are two different documents, which is confusing. Base is the only LO product for which this is the case; for all the other products, the user manual is just called the Guide. However, there is not now, nor has there ever been, a complete Base Guide; all there is is the drafts of three chapters. The reason that there's both a Guide and a Handbook is that the German documentation team got tired of waiting around for the English team to finish the Base Guide, so they took the draft chapters, translated them, finished the book, and published it as the Base-Handbuch. That document was then translated back into English as the Base Handbook. Contrary to what Tom D. indicated, the Handbook is /not/ shorter or less thorough than the Guide. Each is intended to be a complete and comprehensive user manual; the difference is that the Handbook is finished (although not up-to-date in English.) The current German version of the Handbook has 448 pages in 11 chapters; the plan for the Guide includes 10 chapters, of which only 3 are complete. The current English Handbook is for version 3.5 of the product. The most recent German Handbuch is for version 4.2. What I'm doing right now is updating the English Handbook from the more up-to-date German version. Someone else has done the translating; I'm basically just cutting-and-pasting (although I am finding that I have to do a fair amount of translating and editing work as I run across things that don't make sense.) Here's one task we need done right away. The screen captures in the German manual are, as one would respect, from the German version of the app, and are in German. We need someone to work through the procedures described in the Handbook using the English version of the product and capture the needed screenshots in English. Moreover, this needs to be done by someone who's running Base on Linux. For reasons I don't understand, screen captures don't always work correctly when done using Windows, and Windows is what I'm running. If this is something you'd be willing to do, respond to this e-mail and I'll send you more details on how to get started. Best, Alan C. On 9/9/2014 6:21 AM, Tom Davies wrote: Hi :) I think the immediate one to work on is the Base Handbook rather than the full guide. I agree that reading the single chapter in the Getting Started Guide might help prepare you for Base. https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications The first book there has a chapter to introduce each of the modules/programs/apps within LibreOffice. The Base Handbook is much shorter than the full guide so it might not go into as much depth as you'd like but it is good to get a broad overview before getting tooo bogged down in too many of the intricacies. Also it is currently being updated quite significantly so it'd be great to do proof-reading for the chapters as they get completed. It is the Handbook that is in most need of proof-reading at the moment. If you manage to catch up with the translation-update then going on to the full guide would help gain a much deeper understanding. The full guide is more of a longer-term project and is being written from scratch by Dan Lewis. Errr, this guide might help you work with the published guides; https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development Hopefully someone might register you at ODFAuthors while you are reading through that. Many thanks and regards from Tom :) On 8 September 2014 15:41, Joel Madero jmadero@gmail.com wrote: Hey Tom, Well there really is no consideration per say. If you want to help, we'd love to have you assisting! That being said - I'm not terribly familiar with where to begin in documentation. Perhaps someone else could give the first steps and get you started. Thanks for offering to volunteer. Best, Joel On 09/07/2014 09:41 AM, Thomas Taylor wrote: I would be interested in assisting with the documentation for base, primarily the proofreading. I don't currently use base (or any database) and feel that this would help me to also understand the concepts and utilization of this portion of LibreOffice. I use both Linux and Windows although primarily Linux. I have been a moderator for the LO mail-list for about a year and wish to contribute more. I am a retired engineering technician (electro-mechanical) and have been involved in producing user documentation and technical manuals for the medical and automotive fields. Thanks for your consideration, Tom Taylor -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems?
Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Alan Cook alanc...@gmail.com wrote: The reason that there's both a Guide and a Handbook is that the German documentation team got tired of waiting around for the English team to finish the Base Guide, so they took the draft chapters, translated them, finished the book, and published it as the Base-Handbuch. That document was then translated back into English as the Base Handbook. Why the difference in name? Is the Handbook written in a different style than our other guides? Contrary to what Tom D. indicated, the Handbook is /not/ shorter or less thorough than the Guide. Each is intended to be a complete and comprehensive user manual; the difference is that the Handbook is finished (although not up-to-date in English.) The current German version of the Handbook has 448 pages in 11 chapters; the plan for the Guide includes 10 chapters, of which only 3 are complete. Hmm... if they're roughly the same type of manual, then perhaps name/content harmonization would help avoid confusion. (Apologies if there's already been a conversation on this matter; please feel free to point me at it) ...Moreover, this needs to be done by someone who's running Base on Linux. For reasons I don't understand, screen captures don't always work correctly when done using Windows, and Windows is what I'm running. IIRC, most projects take screenshots in GNU/Linux for 1) Consistency 2) Avoiding any question about including screenshots of a proprietary WM Best, --R -- Robinson Tryon QA Engineer - The Document Foundation LibreOffice Community Outreach Herald qu...@libreoffice.org -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
Hi :) Wow, that was all very interesting. To me the word handbook suggests a reasonably comprehensive book that covers most simple cases and/or maybe look-up tables or cheat sheets to nudge me in the right direction without going into anything in tooo much depth. For the greater depth i'd expect something heftier, a manual or something like that. I hadn't thought about how translation to and from German might change nuances and implications such as that. That changes quite a lot of things imo. Taking screen-shots is more like part of a final review process. I don't think it's something a new proof-reader is likely to be able to do. I suspect it's better to do them after a proper review so that the person taking the screen-shots isn't distracted by other issues and can batch-process them to make sure they are all consistent. As far as taking screen-shots goes, it is a little more painful and less obvious in Windows but that is not really the issue. The main problem is that MS sometimes choose to clobber people who disregard their Eula and stuff but most of the time they seem to let it slide. However it might be worth bearing in mind that MS Office is a significant part of their profits and anything that helps anyone reduce their profits could easily be seen as a threat by them. It's not even as though LO helps MS gain greater market share (an alleged reason why so many pirated versions of their stuff is up for grabs in so many countries). Apple might also choose to clobber us for screen-shots and allegedly they have a reputation for being quite heavy handed - however LO does not threaten a core income stream of their's. It may even be helping them look more viable in the markets they seem to be aiming for at the moment. So i can't really imagine them doing it unless we make their icons look bad or some other bit of bad design. To take a screen-shot in GnuLinux; 1. press the PrintScreen button on your keyboard 2. click on save or press enter. To take a screen-shot in Windows 1. press the PrintScreen button on your keyboard (that copies the image into the clipboard) 2. open some program such as Word or an image editing program or something 3. do Ctrl V or Edit - Paste 4. go to File - Save 5. create a name for the file 6. choose where to save it 7. click on save or press enter. Regards from Tom :) On 9 September 2014 17:24, Robinson Tryon bishop.robin...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Alan Cook alanc...@gmail.com wrote: The reason that there's both a Guide and a Handbook is that the German documentation team got tired of waiting around for the English team to finish the Base Guide, so they took the draft chapters, translated them, finished the book, and published it as the Base-Handbuch. That document was then translated back into English as the Base Handbook. Why the difference in name? Is the Handbook written in a different style than our other guides? Contrary to what Tom D. indicated, the Handbook is /not/ shorter or less thorough than the Guide. Each is intended to be a complete and comprehensive user manual; the difference is that the Handbook is finished (although not up-to-date in English.) The current German version of the Handbook has 448 pages in 11 chapters; the plan for the Guide includes 10 chapters, of which only 3 are complete. Hmm... if they're roughly the same type of manual, then perhaps name/content harmonization would help avoid confusion. (Apologies if there's already been a conversation on this matter; please feel free to point me at it) ...Moreover, this needs to be done by someone who's running Base on Linux. For reasons I don't understand, screen captures don't always work correctly when done using Windows, and Windows is what I'm running. IIRC, most projects take screenshots in GNU/Linux for 1) Consistency 2) Avoiding any question about including screenshots of a proprietary WM Best, --R -- Robinson Tryon QA Engineer - The Document Foundation LibreOffice Community Outreach Herald qu...@libreoffice.org -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
On Wednesday, September 10, 2014, Robinson Tryon bishop.robin...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 11:53 AM, Alan Cook alanc...@gmail.com javascript:; wrote: The reason that there's both a Guide and a Handbook is that the German documentation team got tired of waiting around for the English team to finish the Base Guide, so they took the draft chapters, translated them, finished the book, and published it as the Base-Handbuch. That document was then translated back into English as the Base Handbook. Why the difference in name? Is the Handbook written in a different style than our other guides? Because the Base Guide had several chapters in draft form before we decided that translating the German Handbuch would be a faster way to get a book on Base done in English, we used a different name, Handbook, to avoid confusion with the draft guide. I note that all the German translations of the English User Guides are Handbooks; I assume that's the German equivalent term. And yes, the translated Base Handbook is written in a somewhat different style, though not greatly different. Contrary to what Tom D. indicated, the Handbook is /not/ shorter or less thorough than the Guide. Each is intended to be a complete and comprehensive user manual; the difference is that the Handbook is finished (although not up-to-date in English.) The current German version of the Handbook has 448 pages in 11 chapters; the plan for the Guide includes 10 chapters, of which only 3 are complete. Hmm... if they're roughly the same type of manual, then perhaps name/content harmonization would help avoid confusion. (Apologies if there's already been a conversation on this matter; please feel free to point me at it) ...Moreover, this needs to be done by someone who's running Base on Linux. For reasons I don't understand, screen captures don't always work correctly when done using Windows, and Windows is what I'm running. IIRC, most projects take screenshots in GNU/Linux for 1) Consistency 2) Avoiding any question about including screenshots of a proprietary WM Those are the reasons for preferring to take screenshots using Linux. It has nothing to do with don't always work correctly when done using Windows. I note that those in the Writer Guide are taken from Windows, and the Getting Started Guide has a mixture of Windows, Mac, and Linux pix. In both cases it's either be inconsistent or not get the book done. IMO having some Windows pix in the Base Handbook is not a problem, though others disagree. --Jean Best, --R -- Robinson Tryon QA Engineer - The Document Foundation LibreOffice Community Outreach Herald qu...@libreoffice.org javascript:; -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
Hello Alan, The reason that there's both a Guide and a Handbook is that the German documentation team got tired of waiting around for the English team to finish the Base Guide, so they took the draft chapters, translated them, finished the book, and published it as the Base-Handbuch. That document was then translated back into English as the Base Handbook. I have written most of the content of the Base-Handbuch. So let me say: We haven't translated anything from the Base-Guide (or the draft-chapters of it ...) for the Base-Handbuch. I have written it, because there wasn't much information available for Base and it seems to be needed in mailinglists and forums. Regards Robert -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
On 09/07/2014 12:41 PM, Thomas Taylor wrote: I would be interested in assisting with the documentation for base, primarily the proofreading. I don't currently use base (or any database) and feel that this would help me to also understand the concepts and utilization of this portion of LibreOffice. I use both Linux and Windows although primarily Linux. I have been a moderator for the LO mail-list for about a year and wish to contribute more. I am a retired engineering technician (electro-mechanical) and have been involved in producing user documentation and technical manuals for the medical and automotive fields. Thanks for your consideration, Tom Taylor Welcome to the document group! My first suggestion is to use the following link to download the Introducing Base chapter. In the Contents section, click on 1.8 LibreOffice Base Guide. Then you will find this chapter listed. (Download the 4.2 version. Proofread the chapter. Two things you need to do: Edit Changes Record; and Edit Changes Show. The one records the changes, and the second one shows what you have changed. These place a line through what you want to change and also adds what you want to change it to. This is a good beginning point, and there will be more directions given when you have completed this. https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications#LibreOffice_Base_Guide Dan -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
[libreoffice-documentation] Base documentation volunteers
I would be interested in assisting with the documentation for base, primarily the proofreading. I don't currently use base (or any database) and feel that this would help me to also understand the concepts and utilization of this portion of LibreOffice. I use both Linux and Windows although primarily Linux. I have been a moderator for the LO mail-list for about a year and wish to contribute more. I am a retired engineering technician (electro-mechanical) and have been involved in producing user documentation and technical manuals for the medical and automotive fields. Thanks for your consideration, Tom Taylor -- Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner. -Les Brown ^^ --... ...-- / -.- --. --... -.-. ..-. -.-. Tom Taylor KG7CFC openSUSE 13.1 (64-bit), Kernel 3.11.6-4-default, KDE 4.11.2, AMD Phenom X4 955, GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Nvidia 337.19) 16GB RAM -- 3x1.5TB sata2 -- 128GB-SSD FF 27.0, claws-mail 3.10.0 registered linux user 263467 -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: documentation+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org 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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
