Hi Jean; Please see responses in-line On 7/2/2020 8:50 PM, Jean Weber wrote: > Keith, > Question: Is the AOO documentation effort committed to publishing > primarily on the wiki? Why not just produce ODT and PDF and make them > available for download from the wiki? That's what we did for OOo back > in the day. (At one point I did convert all the ODT files to wiki > format, but that was a secondary effort.) >
The original intent formulated on the doc@ list was to do all the user documentation on-line in the wiki as a set of heavily linked articles on the MWiki. The problem has been the lack of expertise in tech writing in general, mentoring and getting volunteers trained in the MWiki formatting. My longer term goal is to use odt files as the source documents and get them under Revision Control and then use another tool to create the Wiki content, and other formats such as EPUB that we could then distribute from the wiki along with the odt files and PDFs. > I think that expecting or requiring volunteers to deal with a wiki as > well as becoming familiar with AOO itself is asking too much. If you > want to publish on a wiki, I think you really need at least one person > dedicated to converting Writer files to wiki format. > IMX, DocBook is MUCH too difficult for most volunteers, though I > understand there are reasonable front-ends available; I may be out of > date. However, I think it's still asking too much of a volunteer to > deal with more than one format. I do not expect them to have to deal with the wiki or especially with DocBook, that would be the province of a very small number of people willing to take the time and learn how to use them. The only thing the normal volunteer would have to deal with would be using AOO itself. The more I look at it the more I am hesitant about DocBook, even though Writer is capable of outputting the the DocBook XML file. A few people have mentioned Pandoc as an alternative converter and I have installed it and am starting to investigate it more. > > Producing the docs using Writer also provides an easy way to review > and edit them, using change tracking. Exactly my thinking as well as using our own product to create the documentation is good marketing. > > Attracting, mentoring, and keeping volunteers (with the necessary > skills) is the biggest problem, and it won't be solved by technolog That is very true and will always be something to deal with over the life time of the project. My hope is that by using Writer with its heavy emphasis on styles and templates to make it easier to attract people who are then willing to stay active. Will it work? Only time will tell. > BTW, I am not available to mentor or otherwise assist, because I am > already overcommitted to another project. I completely understand that issue as I have been there myself more than once. I truly appreciate you taking the time to review the document and comment on it. Regards Keith > > Jean > > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 1:25 AM Keith N. McKenna > <keith.mcke...@comcast.net> wrote: >> >> This is a reminder that I am looking for input from this list as how to >> best move forward on re-invigorating the Documentation effort for AOO >> again the proposal document is attached to this e-mail. Thank you in >> advance for your cooperation. >> >> Regards >> Keith >> >> On 6/13/2020 9:40 PM, Keith N. McKenna wrote: >>> It has been pointed out to me that I neglected to attach the document in >>> the original post. It is now an attachment to this post. >>> >>> On 6/13/2020 4:52 PM, Keith N. McKenna wrote: >>>> Greetings all; >>>> >>>> As the subject states I am proposing a new methodology to try to >>>> reinvigorate the stalled documentation effort for AOO. For the first >>>> step in this I have created a draft document that lays out the problems >>>> and also some proposed solutions. As all most of you have been involved >>>> in the documentation effort I would appreciate your comments and >>>> suggested changes to it. The document was created in Writer and has >>>> record and read changes turned on. Feel free to make any changes or >>>> additions you feel could be helpful. Of course comments or suggestions >>>> are welcome as replies to the to this mailing list as well. >>>> >>>> Thank you all in advance for taking time to contribute to this effort >>>> and I hope many of you will return to the documentation team as we move >>>> forward with this. >>>> >>>> Regards >>>> Keith N. McKenna >>>> >>>> >>> >>
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