On 09/06/2010 07:52 PM, John Kaufmann wrote:
there.] I want to go over the details again in one of the dev lists<*>,
but don't want to burden the bandwidth this list again, as this is not
where the problems will be solved.
[<*> But which dev list? I have been on qa-dev for a couple months,
trying to gauge if that is the place. But it is not a very active list,
and I posted only one question, which received no replies.]
In terms of the docs themselves, you are welcome to chatter about it on
[email protected] (requires a subscription just like
the users list does). Several of the people who wrote the User Guide
content are active there, and can either take the knowledge you do have
and maybe correct the docs, or contribute to some combined effort to
"get it right" or at least less confusing. From there, we can look at
correcting or clarifying the application Help a little.
There is a good chance that due to the high volume on this users list
that info is simply lost in shuffle... I only read a few messages here
and there myself, and I know most others do the same. Chattering on the
authors mailing list about it will hit a much much smaller audience, the
people who are actually working on the docs on a daily basis.
That is a perfect statement of an attitude to which I fully subscribe:
Let's fix it. The reason I have not tackled the wiki yet - either the
Writer Guide or the FAQ - is that I still (after strenuous efforts)
*don't know* how envelopes are supposed to work, or how to make sense of
something that does not make coherent sense. I suspect that is what
people have tried to do, and why the various info sources are incoherent
on the subject. IOW, I suspect that the problem is less with the
documentation than with the design - and that it may go beyond the
"Envelope" page style to more basic issues of how styles are structured
in Writer. That said, I just have not had time to do more, but am
committed to do so. As NoOp said some time back, it will probably
require digging into the sources - but without design specs, or some
clarity about the design intent, that can be a huge and unrewarding job.
Well, armed with the right questions, we can chase down the developers
and maybe get some clarification. It won't be an instant solution, but
it can be added to the list of things to fix in the docs. We've got
people on the Doc team willing to jump in there and fix things if they
know what needs to be worked on. This would be a great project for someone.
C.
--
Clayton Cornell [email protected]
OpenOffice.org Documentation Project co-lead
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