16 Nov
2011
16 Nov
'11
11:47 p.m.
On Wednesday 16 November 2011 11:12:43 am Darrell Anderson wrote:
We have none. :)
In the past I mentioned my background in technical writing and an interest
in coordinating a user's guide. No promises but I want to get something
moving.
I have PDF copies of three KDE3 user guides. All are licensed to allow
using the text in other documents.
KDEUserGuideFinal.pdf: Published by the United Nations Development
Programme’s Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme
(UNDP-APDIP)Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (heavily focused on PCLinuxOS)
opensuse110_kdequick.pdf
opensuse110_kdeuser.pdf
Although I could convert those documents to text files with various
conversion tools, I would like to find the original source files. For you
OpenSuse folks, you might be able to find those two document source files.
The Kubuntu people at one time had a KDE 3 user's guide. I can find HTML
remnants of such a guide on the web.
Tim, as the one-time Kubuntu coordinator for KDE3 I'm hoping you might be
able to find sources for that document.
Long term I want to establish a process to single source the text to
various mediums: a PDF, HTML, wiki, etc. Single sourcing text files long
been has the Holy Grail of technical writing and frankly, no optimal
solution yet exists despite what anybody might claim. DocBook, DITA, XML
all were supposed to provide that single source miracle but none have
fulfilled any tech writer's dream. Nonetheless, if we get our hands on the
original source files for these documents we then find a big step in the
right direction toward providing a much-needed Trinity user's guide. If not
we still can convert the information using raw conversion tools.
Thanks!
Darrell
I might not be a technical writer, but I've written a few mini-guides and I'm
still newbie enough to work up some sensible rough drafts. I generally don't
like using someone else's guides, partly because I'm too lazy to take the
time to read them, and I tend to be a real stickler for grammar, detail, and
easy to follow directions ;-)
If you are going to use the PDFs, we might be able to coordinate, perhaps get
more people involved. My only problem is if we use the wiki, there have been
some complaints about the way it saves the markups and then converts them to
a different markup format, memorizing one markup is hard enough without
having to juggle two on one wiki.
--
Kristopher Gamrat
Ark Linux webmaster
http://www.arklinux.org/