David,
I know you have enough to do already, so absolutely no rush from my end
at all.
One thing I do think essential is to consolidate the fragment that exist
in the other locations I mentioned (itemised in my comments at
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBENDUSER/Areas+Being+Worked+On
The reasoning behind my belief that pruning redundant material is even
more important than adding new stuff, comes from Lavoisier's preface to
the book generally perceived as being the foundation of modern
chemistry, "Traité Elémentaire de Chimie."
http://www.chem.yale.edu/~chem125/125/history99/2Pre1800/Lavoisier/Preface/discours.html
"We think only through the medium of words. ----The art of reasoning is
nothing more than a language well arranged."
"Our only aim ought to be ease and perspicuity, and with the utmost care
to keep every thing out of view which might draw aside the attention of
the student; it is a road which we should be continually rendering more
smooth, and from which we should endeavour to remove every obstacle
which can occasion delay.
Then again, Lavoisier was tried and executed as a traitor at the age of
51. As the judge said, "The Republic has no need of scientists." So he's
not an act I'd particularly like to follow myself ;)
Ian
David E. Jones wrote:
I forgot to mention: I'll work on doing this later this week
(hopefully... ;) ) if no one beats me to it.
-David
On Mar 7, 2007, at 1:40 PM, David E. Jones wrote:
Thanks for the details on this Ian. I think based on this what Scott
proposed was a good idea, but it's probably best to move this over to
the end user doc space now and then get it into the normal doc
management process we hope for (ie allow people to casually comment
on it, but have a smaller and hopefully more experienced and
dedicated group actually changing it.
-David
On Mar 7, 2007, at 6:17 AM, Ian McNulty wrote:
Hi Scott,
Your message arrived at last! Many thanks.
Yes it was very laborious work. Getting on for a hundred hours in
total if you include finding the right software for the conversion,
researching the extent of the currently existing fragments in the
Wiki, learning the Wiki markup etc. And not great for the RSI in my
mouse arm either. A dirty job, but somebody had to to it ;)
I really am a bit reluctant to comment any more than I already have
on the current content of the docs. As far as I understand it, they
were written by a professional technical writer (which I certainly
am not) and cost something like $40,000 to produce, so they are of
considerable value as they stand. I treated them as such, and made
every effort not to drop even one single word.
As for developing them further, I'm afraid this is way out of my
league. Two months after installing OFBiz, I still don't feel
confident I know how to work it myself, let alone teach anybody else.
I originally started translating the PDFs into editable format with
the aim of re-jigging them into something that I or any of my
clients might be able to use. But after more than a week's work I
eventually had to admit defeat and decided simply to translate them
as they stood in the hope that others might succeed where I had
failed. So any further development of this material really would
need to be done by anybody else except me.
I appreciate your offer of help in answering any questions I might
have, but there are so many that answering them all would probably
mean having to write an entire User's Manual yourself, which would
kindof defeat the purpose of the exercise!
That said, your thanks are appreciated. I just hope that these docs
can now be developed into something useful and that I have been able
to make some kind of contribution towards the further development of
the OFBiz end-user community.
Best,
Ian
Scott Gray wrote:
Hi Ian
I believe these will eventually end up in the End-User docs section
that you mention below, but I wouldn't recommend moving them there
until any major revisions have been completed.
How do you (and anyone else reading) feel about the current content
of the docs? If you or anyone else has time to contribute to them
further then that should take place on the wiki for now, and once
any efforts to improve them have slowed down, they could then be
moved over to the OFBENDUSER space to protect the work that has
been done.
I'd be happy to try and answer any questions you might have if you
decide to work on this further (and I'm sure others would too).
Personally I think you've done a great job migrating the docs and I
can guess how laborious the task must have been (I gave it a go
myself at one point).
Thanks
Scott
Ian McNulty wrote:
Hi All,
I posted news of this a couple of days ago but put it in the
General questions thread by mistake, so thought I ought to try
again on a new thread.
I've now finished migrating the complete set of Undersun Manager
Reference PDFs to Wiki format.
I couldn't get access to the OFBiz End-User Documentation section
so was advised by Jacopo to put them under my Confluence Home page
at:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/Manager+References
Is this where they should stay, or do they now need be moved into
a public section of the Wiki where they can be amended and refined
by others as the project develops?
Ian
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