[Scribus] Freedom Yug tutorial

[BandiPat]

Christoph Sch?fer wrote:
> Am Freitag, 29. September 2006 01:09 schrieb 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 still being used, it is very outdated and should not have been used as a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
>>     
>
> Why don't you write one yourself, load it up to the Wiki or any other place of 
> your choice to teach us complete and clueless idiots how to do it right?
>   
--------------------
Because, so far, Christoph, you seem to have failed to understand my
other suggestions, so why would I want to spend the time to confuse you
further?

bye


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