Published chapters of Getting Started and Writer Guide

Hi
Looking through the Introducing Writer Chapter 1 (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications) I have a few observations.

On page 8, Figure 9. The screenshot is wrong in as much as the Unsaved Changes icon is wrong. The figure shows an /unmodified since last save icon/.
Text is missing from the Insert Mode area of the Status Bar. It should have *INSRT* or*OVER* within the box.
The illustrative icons are now missing from the text of the *Unsaved changes* and *Digital signature* paragraphs. As a newbie and low-level user of Writer it was useful to know what these looked like.

I would like to reiterate my suggestion from some while back about the *Starting a new document* paragraph; i.e.

I suggest the second bullet point in /*Starting a new document */is altered to read “From the Quickstarter, if enabled in *Tools - Options – LibreOffice – Memory, *which is found in ...”.

The reason is that not all installations are set to load LibreOffice at start-up, so there is no Quickstarter to use. :slight_smile:

The observations below also refer to the wiki site documents.

Regards
John Smith

Thanks, John. I'll follow up on your observations and suggestions and
fix those chapters. (Many eyes help immensely in finding error and
omissions... of which there are often many, since I do most of the
writing in a rush.)

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
It feels like a team again. Good work John, Jean (always) and everyone :)  Is there anyone in this team that doesn't feel like c#@% after 1 or 2 things have gone slightly wrong even tho they have done an awesome job on a ton of other things and got their result out there?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Once we have a full guide ready for the official website then it will look good and make sense there.  Having an odd few chapters might be confusing.  Until then the 3.4.x chapters can be available on the wiki.  Possibly after we have 1 completed guide for the 3.4.x branch then odd chapters for the other guides might make some sense but right now it might just look messy.

Perhaps what I should do is add one line to the list at the top of the
website page, telling people that chapters for v3.4 are being added to
the wiki as they are being produced (with a link to the wiki page).

Errr, it's just occurred to me that the website probably uses html coding? If so then could i edit it? Html makes a lot more sense to me than wiki-mark-up and i could make tables that would be easier to add to.

It is HTML and I thought of that idea too. Perhaps when there are
enough books & chapters for v3.4 available, we might consider it.
However, the website appears to use fixed-width pages, and when people
like me increase the font size in their browsers, tables can become
quite a mess. Another way to deal with two streams of docs would be to
have separate pages for each stream; that's certainly easier and
cleaner to maintain... and possibly less confusing for visitors.

--Jean

I've just discovered missing screenshots in the PDF for Getting
Started with Writer as well. I'll fix that, and check all the other
chapters that I've published. After lunch...

--Jean

I have replaced the PDF with one that contains the missing
screenshots. They were in the ODT but didn't display. This happens
occasionally; I think it's a memory issue, related to what else I'm
doing at the same time.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Perhaps.  You know

Tools - Options - Memory

and then ramp up the caches for various things.  Seems to help quite a bit but i'm guessign that is something you have already done ages ago.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi :slight_smile:
I don't really like the idea of adding more and more pages but it does get around the problems that tables have.  The wiki tables tend to be pretty bad so i was hoping i could get the html ones a lot nicer.

Luckily the Portuguese team seem to be quite happy with the modifications i did to their tables and have added to and modified them a bit which is always good to see.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi
Regarding Chapter 5 of the Writer guide for 3.4.x; the screenshots for figures 8 and 9 do not reflect the current display in LO. The screenshots appear to be a hang-over from OOo which didn't display the place-holders in the preview box, for the stamp, addressee's and if selected, the sender's addresses.

I hope these observations are helpful.

Regards
John Smith

Hi :slight_smile:
Mostly those screenshots are from LO 3.3.x branch which is pretty much identical to OOo in many ways.  Anyway, good work with the heads-up again.  I guess you are either not using Ubuntu or you are trying to race through proof-reading to get it done quickly?  Either way is fine so i don't know why i'm asking but its interesting to know about people's methods.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

John, your observations are very helpful. We (I) may not get around to
fixing things quickly, but having them noted is very good.

These are among the sort of things that I ask people to look for when
reviewing the v3.3 versions for things that need to be changed for the
v3.4 books, so if you (or anyone) have the time and interest to go
through some of the chapters that have not yet been updated and point
out the pix that need to be changed, that would be very helpful too.
Finding them after publication is good; finding them before
publication is even better. As you can tell, I often just don't see
things like that; I've been looking at these chapters for too many
years.

--Jean

Hi Tom
Is this a possible oops moment? A reply put to the wrong post?

Seems like your comment was for Gabriel's post. :slight_smile:

If not, then I have Win XP. The two screenshots were also wrong for the 3.3 release.

Regards
John

Hi Jean
I must admit I'm interested in giving some help to the project but have felt I don't have the necessary skill-sets for it.
I'm retired after a working life repairing and calibrating electronic measuring equipment. Technical manuals have been an integral part of that, and 'though I have no writing skills, I do know what I dislike when I pick a manual up that's not been done too well.
If it's thought I could help on the inside rather than making comments post publication, then perhaps an Alfresco account is the way to go. No problems either way.
Regards
John

Hi :slight_smile:
You make good comments and have an eye for a high level of detail so it would be fantastic if you can expand on what you currently do.  However that might slow you down.  Often it's fairly standard to have 1 person racing through flagging-up the things that need doing and that is something Jean has done a lot of in the past.  Then other people work through those changes without having to worry that they might be missing something because they just work through your list and tick things off as they go.

In effect you are creating the equivalent of the "Easy Hacks" that helps people learn their way into the devs group. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi :slight_smile:
Definitely an Opps moment.  Thanks for trying to find a reason for my madness but it was wrong for Gabriel too.
Thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

John,
I will set up an Alfresco account for you later today, so you can dive
into finding out of date info/pix and other errors and omissions while
we're revising the docs. As Tom notes, I've done most of the
"flagging" of items, but that's only because other people haven't been
doing (much of) that. And of course I miss a lot, particularly since
for this last round I concentrated on a list of what's new or changed
in the product, not on what the existing chapters contained. The more
people looking at things, the better.

Tom,
I disagree with your statement, "Then other people work through those
changes without having to worry that they might be missing something
because they just work through your list and tick things off as they
go." The people making changes need to do more than follow a list;
they need to pay attention and spot other things that the first person
missed or that don't become apparent until one is researching and
rewriting the material.

--Jean

John, Your Alfresco account is now set up and details have been
emailed to you privately. --Jean

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/pt-br/Guia_do_Iniciante

This is the location for the finalized GS Pt-br guide ...

-- Just kidding of course :slight_smile: Thx again Tom

Rogerio

Hi :slight_smile:
Time i get 'free' is pretty sporadic and unreliable at best.  Wiki-editing seems to be the best area for me because if i have to drop it in a hurry and can't get back to finish off my plans then it usually looks ok and there is always someone able to move things on easily.  I tend to worry if no-one else edits a page after me as there is always more to do. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

As I said, just kidding, great job .. will try to make the table at the GS
site look as good as you left the other one. Just not that much available
for this right now

Rogerio