[Scribus] Freedom Yug tutorial

[BandiPat]

Gregory Pittman wrote:
> [...]
> And finally, this tutorial is hardly an end-all or be-all. The wiki has 
> a number of things that perhaps are more along your suggestions. It's 
> why I made the various "Working with..." pages, to simply show where 
> various buttons are, how you use this or that requester, and so on. 
> These are perhaps the bulk of the questions we see from new users. There 
> is an entirely different category of user that is quite familiar with 
> layout, design, and publication, and needs something more advanced.
>
> I think we can stand the heat from your comments, just try to shed some 
> light along with it.
>
> Greg
> _______________________________________________
>
>   
I apologize for overestimating your Scribus and DTP abilities.  I just
thought since you had been helping with many things or your mails at
least indicated that, you had more than a passing familiarity with the
program and it's workings.  I mention that because many times having a
better than average knowledge of the program will and can prevent one
from covering much of the info needed to create a functional tutorial.

As I am sometimes long winded and you did ask for some light, I'll
apologize for the upcoming long response to your mail.

Let's start with using a previous tutorial.  Niyam's tutorial was for a
very early scribus release.  Although some of the material he covered is
still being used, it is very outdated and should not have been used as a
basis for a new one.  You mentioned you didn't know Scribus that well,
so you would have done well to create your tutorial from that aspect. 
There are several reasons not to use a previous older tutorial.  Because
of the many things it missed, did poorly and lacked, so will the new
one.  Even the original tutorial was bad.  I went to the trouble of
printing it out, hoping that might help in following it, but I gave up
shortly after starting it, as many here have.  I'm like John, in that a
printed page is much more usable to me than computer screen.  I've spoke
with several other people who have tried to use the tutorial only to
quit shortly after starting it.  Now the question that begs to be
answered is this because the tutorial was difficult to follow or is it
due to the difficulty of using Scribus?  I think we can attribute it to
both actually.

You should start an absolutely new tutorial through the eyes of an
absolutely new user, which it sounds like you might still be able to do,
if your knowledge of the program is still that new.  You might want to
also elicit the help of someone else just learning the program to help edit.

Now for some specifics.  First of all, why is there a first page for
installing the program?  That completely baffles me!  If someone is
coming here to read a tutorial on how to use Scribus, isn't it safe to
assume they already have it installed?  If you want to put a link to
another site or page more suited to this and with better instructions on
installing and getting files for the program, fine.  I don't think you
need to add to the confusion by putting abbreviated instructions in a
how to tutorial.

Second, excerpts from the original tutorial show up right away on the
next page.  It hardly fits the way the newer versions of Scribus work
now.  Again, this is one of the dangers of using a previous tutorial on
which to build a new or revised one.

Continuing with the first steps, I see what has become one of my pet
peeves with the program.  The terminology used in Scribus, thus also in
the tutorial.  I don't know how many times many of you guys have stated,
argued or even chastised someone for referring to the workspace as a
"page"!  Look at the tutorial, what's the first thing we see both there
and in the program?  Look closely now, that's right "page layout"!! 
It's not even a layout in the strict sense of the word, but a setup.  If
everyone is going to refer to these as pages, then for gosh sakes, make
them a page!  If indeed it is to be only a blank workspace, then make it
such.  Refer to is as such and explain why it's that way.  I don't think
you guys realize how confusing that is to a user.  Change the titles to
"Document Setup" or something more appropriate, please!  Also, get rid
of the stupid "Insert" heading in the menu of the main window.  Change
that to "Page Layout" with "Insert" being a sub-menu item of that. 
That's just more logical to most users, I think.

Ok, I'll stop with that.  It should be enough to ponder for a bit. 
Again, if you've used or tried to use the previous tutorial as a basis
to build this one on the wiki, then there'll be further examples of bad
things in the rest of it.  This mail is long and I hope everyone has
managed to get through it without getting too bored or upset at my
suggestions.  Hopefully, I've at least given you a few things to think
about as well.

bye,
Pat



-- 
          ---SuSE Linux v10.1---
        Registered Linux User #225206
    "Life's a garden, Dig It!"  --Joe Dirt