[Scribus] Fwd: Re: Manual - first baby step

[Gregory Pittman]

>     From: adam hyde <adam at flossmanuals.net>
>     Reply-To: adam at flossmanuals.net
>     To: scribus at nashi.altmuehlnet.de
>     Subject: Re: [Scribus] Manual - first baby step
>     Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:31:40 +0200
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I just subscribed to the list and have read the archived chat on a
>     manual with interest. I don't know if it is of interest but I am
>     involved with a online community of free documentaiton writers. The
>     project is called 'FLOSS Manuals' (http://www/flossmanuals.net).
>
>     We have a nice tool set for writing manuals online. Its an open wiki
>     (needs registration to make contributions) with some nice tools
>     including a wysiwyg editor and automatic export to pdf (and soon also
>     docbook etc).
>
>     We are also doing nice Print on Demand manuals from the content in
>     the
>     wiki. This is actually why I sub'ed to the list as I want to use
>     Scribus
>     for the layout of the print ready PDFs.
>
>     We work with a system of each manual having a voluntary
>     maintainer. This
>     is someone that looks after the quality of the manual, making sure
>     all
>     the edits are spell checked, look nice etc before publishing. So no
>     edits are 'live' to the manual but happen in the backend
>     (http://www.flossmanuals.net/write) and are published to the manual
>     maintained on the front end (http://www.flossmanuals.net). We have
>     roll
>     backs and other tools to assist with the maintainence of the manuals.
>
>     We are currently developing workflow mechanisms for translation
>     and are
>     looking to have a complete Farsi site up by the end of the year
>     and then
>     onto other languages.
>
>     Other features include a nifty remix
>     (http://www.flossmanuals.net/remix)
>     function that allows one to remix your own manual and output to
>     downloadable html (with your own css), pdf, or embed in your website
>     with our ajax api. All manuals are licensed under GPL to make the
>     manuals compatable with the applications they support (ie.
>     applications
>     can embed the manuals in the interface if desired).
>
>     I was wondering if those interested in writing the manual might be
>     interested in collaborating in the writing via a floss manuals
>     scribus
>     manual?
>
>     Kind regards,
>
>     adam
>

This sounds interesting, and in fact there has been some discussion 
about this. For us or at least for me, it's a bit of a sacrilege to have 
the final output (PDF) done in anything other than Scribus. As we've 
told many on the list, Scribus isn't the best tool for composing and 
editing text, especially when there's a lot of it. In something like 
this we also have to deal with its collaborative nature.

One thing this may do is point the way to some functions, features, 
tools, and hooks that would improve workflow for projects like this, so 
in the end it may benefit Scribus at the development level.

Greg