[Scribus] Manual - new thread

[Gregory Pittman]

Cedric Sagne wrote:
> ON THE MANUAL THING
> I would suggest we organise a taskforce for one official manual - 
> online, comprehensive and its PDF version !
> Craig, Louis, what tools/tips can you give these willing souls before 
> they start their journey? I would happily become a founding member of 
> such a taskforce (please reply offlist).
>
> Anybody interested, please contact me offlist, maybe we could work in 
> the documentation section in the wiki, start by finding out what time 
> everyone has, what they are keenest on doing.
>   
I think there is some merit here in looking at the problem. A concern I 
have about a taskforce is its risk of isolation from valuable input. 
While us old (speaking for myself) and crusty users of Scribus have a 
certain point-of-view, in many ways it is the newbies who offer 
important insight into whether documentation is useful, and what is missing.
We are I think justified in thinking that the task is big, yet it may 
not be huge. It may seem like an elephant, but if we analyze it, may be 
more like a water buffalo (maybe I'm watching too much Animal Planet).

Let me propose this:
Let's put together a list of wiki articles that would be in some way 
useful in a PDF. We no doubt have different opinions about essential 
contents, but if we can prioritize, we stand a chance of building 
something in an incremental fashion, much like the wiki. Who would have 
thought the wiki would become what it is today?

So let's begin to vote...
Here is a suggested structure by example:
E - Working with (WW) text frames
E - WW image frames
E - WW Master Pages
D - Text on a Path
O - WW Scribus: How to begin
E - Pagination

where E = essential, D = desirable, O = optional, and if you have no 
opinion, don't put it on your list.

We can use the list to "vote" (in this thread for best tracking) and I 
might add you could vote more than once for different pages, not for the 
same page unless you want to change your vote.
I'll keep track of the votes and make a wiki page. If you're going to 
vote, PLEASE trim out the fat from the email, down to your vote. If you 
want to make a comment and not vote, make a new thread.

I would not necessarily discount voting for non-English articles. There 
is a breadth to the work that Ludi has done in Brazilian Portuguese that 
English has not touched on.
Our PDF(s) could easily end up being multilingual.

If you need it, here is a special page listing all wiki articles:
http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Special:Allpages
This one is interesting too:
http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Special:Popularpages

This doesn't have to be just your own preference -- you can also use 
your sense of FAQs from the list that we keep answering over and again.

I might add that just because something scores "higher" doesn't make it 
a shoe-in for the PDF -- it depends on the task involved. For example, 
I'm not so enthusiastic about diving into the tutorial having gone 
through the update and wikification.

In contrast to the wiki, where what's going on is quite public, we may 
need to announce in some way if someone has taken on the task of a 
particular page -- no sense in duplication of effort.
Personally, I think that if someone uses something other than Scribus to 
make the PDF, they should probably be banished from the Kingdom. Making 
the .sla files available will be essential after you're done -- we're 
well aware of the need to update. I would also hope that with the talent 
we have on this list we can create something that is not only 
informative but attractive -- be prepared to have your work critiqued, 
and try to be professional and not personal with giving and receiving a 
critique. Expect complaints without suggested solutions to be largely 
ignored.

If/when I get some feedback, I'll make the wiki page with results.

Greg