On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Gary Schnabl <[email protected]> wrote: > On 6/14/2012 2:23 AM, Jean Weber wrote: >> >> On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Gary Schnabl<[email protected]> >> wrote: >>> >>> On 6/14/2012 12:19 AM, Gary Schnabl wrote: >>>> >>>> On 6/13/2012 8:18 PM, Tom Davies wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hi :) >>>>> Is the 3.6.x usable enough to completely skip all the remaining 3.5.x >>>>> guides and go straight to the 3.6.x guides instead? >>>>> Regards from >>>>> Tom :) >>>> >>>> >>>> My dos centavos... >>>> >>>> Due to the very small number of writers available, LO should always >>>> rewrite its current material at the beta version level, at least. Better >>>> yet, write for the pre-release alpha stage and update the chapters >>>> accordingly, as needed. >>>> >>>> Otherwise, when the LO docs project attempts to complete an incremental >>>> edition, it will likely keep remaining an incremental version or three >>>> behind--and possibly contain deprecated or even worse, obsolete, >>>> material in >>>> addition to being untimely. >>>> >>>> Gary >>> >>> >>> I forgot to add... >>> >>> The writings should be done much like the technical editing and rewriting >>> we >>> performed for Motorla/Freescale Semiconductor: using conditional text for >>> the various material that differs. After a reasonable amount of time, the >>> obsolete or deprecated material can be permanently deleted. >>> >>> Gary >> >> >> Gary, you know perfectly well that very few volunteers are able to >> cope with conditional text or any of the other professional methods of >> maintaining documentation. Otherwise, I would agree. >> >> As for working with beta software, this is also a problem for many >> volunteers. We've seen that over and over again at OOo and here. >> However, I'm far more willing to tackle that problem. Of course, some >> of our regular contributors have no problem with using upcoming >> releases, so that's not a showstopper. >> >> See my other note about my conclusions from studying the features >> lists for v3.5 and v3.6. >> >> --Jean > > > For those who might be unaware of the use of conditional text... > > Using conditional text is not as complicated as you are making it seem. > Reviewers or re(writers) could work as before with their writings or > reviews. > > Afterward, a maintenance editor (a type of technical editor who updates > docs) could then incorporate the conditional text into a master chapter > document, as needed. As a result, any desired incremental version could be > generated, utilizing the appropriate conditional field for the particular > version. And the final port of a particular version's chapter is (typically) > cleared of its conditional text for the master document used for book > building, assuming that a book or PDF is the desired output. > > All of that could be made transparent to those writers, editors, or > reviewers with less experience. There were times in the past (mostly for > version 2.x, when there were a bit more volunteers at times than currently) > when OO had maintenance editors assigned to chapters, thus aiding in > updating those chapters of the Writer Guide. > > Of course, the problem in that regard is a current lack of maintenance > editors--something that could be corrected with an aggressive recruitment of > volunteers (no easy task). Another benefit would be keeping the modularity > involved when a guide is broken up into chapters along with their attendant > maintaining editors--much like it was a few years ago. > > One problem was LO/OO reinventing the wheel over and over again when redoing > a complete incremental edition with mostly unaltered material, thus > resulting in some delays in getting out a complete increment guide for > whatever component being developed. But the real delay at LO is not getting > an appropriate leg-up with new material while not starting the updating > until way past the time the incremental version is already in its general, > stable release. > > > > Gary
Gary: I don't disagree with what you've said here, BUT... I'll take your suggestions on how we can or should be doing things a lot more seriously when you start doing some actual work around here instead of just pontificating on how it should be done. And not just the nitpicking you used to do at OOo and early on here at LO: some actual productive work. --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/documentation/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
