[Scribus] Manual draft for scribus 1.4 on the Wiki

[Christoph Schäfer]

Hi Louis,

> I understand we wait for an answer from Niyam.
> 
> When I look back to this tutorial, I still find it very useful. Of 
> course, many many things have changed, some menus are not there where 
> you expect them anymore and some features are new. But basically, 
> this takes users by the hand through more than Scribus. Laying out a 
> publication is exactly the purpose here. What the tutorial basically 
> tells you is you can do just what you want with Scribus. (I am *not* 
> saying it shouldn't be updated.)

Updating the tutorial is one way to go, definitely. My draft for the 
Wiki was another approach, explaining general issues like typography or 
colour and then describing how to use the knowledge in scribus. It was a 
typical manual approach.

> I think the users so far have a fair amount of willingness to learn 
> and have developped to a high level their skills to learn by 
> themselves. When they can't figure out something, they can rely on 
> the docs, the tutorial, the bug tracker, the wiki. In the end, if all 
> of this falls short, they write us!

While you are correct, this is not what users in professional settings 
might expect. Many of them need an online help where they can look up 
things. I don't say that closed source documentation is very good in 
most cases, but a user should be able to quickly find an answer on how 
to import an image file, without using the internet. I know many 
settings where designers aren't even connected to the internet.

> Let me say I have never ever 
> encountered better support for *any* software.

That's definitely true!!!

> For the last couple of months, it seems to me we didn't get as much 
> questions on this list on how to do this or that in terms of "DTP" as 
> we got on installation issues, discussions at a larger level on 
> various and related subjects, including platform issues, as well as 
> CMYK/RGB and PDFs issues. Some of this stuff not being "Scribus 
> exclusive" ;)

As I wrote above, that was the idea: describe general problems and 
scribus specic solutions (with an eye on 1.3x/1.4).

Moreover, applying the open source approach to documentation is IMHO a 
good idea. Problems and ambiguities can be sorted out that way. Also, 
usability might benefit from such an approach. It is one thing to figure 
out yourself how and why something has to be done or to explain it to 
someone else.

I agree, however, with all of you that the Wiki is probably not the best 
place to work on it, mostly due to licencing issues. It makes it too 
easy for others to copy the content and publish a manual without giving 
anything back.

Cheers,

Christoph