Re: docs folder

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Morten Juhl-Johansen Zölde-Fejér
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I actually started something like this a while back, but I always became
> lost in planning how to approach the issue!
>
> But I would definitely be interested in participating. And yes, it would be
> great to have something like that set up for a 3.0 release.
>
> All the best,
> Morten


Morten,

My initial thought would be that starting by producing a relatively
simple User's Guide in English as an abw file would be worthwhile.
Such a "stub" can be expanded collaboratively.

Yes, there are neat tools for generating and localizing docs, but they
are no good without content and abw is as good a format for creating
content and reviewing it as any I can think of.  Anything created
could easily be copied and pasted int oa mor esophisticated format at
a later time, so no effort would be lsot.

The cross-platform nature of AbiWord may introduce some challenges in
selecting a fancier tool, most of what I have seen is possibly
Linux-specific.

A users guide should describe basic (and ideally advanced) functions.
OS-specific sections would be nice to have to the extent th3ey might
be different, but the vast majority of the functions are
cross-platfor,

Just my two cents.  I would not hold up on starting to draft a user's
guide as a solo effort.  it is much easier to get others to contribute
and edit than to try to contribute sections in advance.  Best t ohave
a straw man to improve.

Structuring for L10n (i,e, i18n) is of course important, but if the
abw doc is stable, there are ways of converting text into PO files for
the convenience of localizers.  On the other hand, there is nothing
wrong with asking localizers t ouse their localized AbiWord to
translate the user guide either.  It would be an excellent L10n
testing opportunity to give AbiWord a run through in localized langs.

Honestly, I do not see the point in producing a lot of developer's
docs for distribution.  They are stale by the time they land on the
user's desktop, but a section in the user's guide pointing folks at
the wiki and inviting them to the lists seems like a fine idea.

Just my two cents.

cjl