[Bf-docboard] Blender 2.40 QuickStart Guide (FINAL)

[Jef Jansen]

No offence,

Blender is great.
And "the quickstart" is a good help together with the "new keyboard lay 
out"
I think really "helpfull" for every one



Op 23-dec-05 om 01:24 heeft Frédéric van der Essen het volgende 
geschreven:

> For me, the guide shouldn't try to convince the user how great it is.
> That's the job of the website and marketting brochure. Once the
> artist downloads blender, he must already know that blender is
> the coolest piece of software in the universe ^^
>
> But since i seem very alone defending that point, then let the
> quickstart guide be orange, kungfu and shiny :D
>
>
> Well, if most of you think that orange is cooler, then let it be :)
>
> Jef Jansen a écrit :
>
>> Hoi Frederic and Ewout,
>>
>> Ewout has a big clue. The essence "the quickstart is a must have" 
>> next to the keyboard it's a excellent help. Quicstart in blue orange 
>> . Print it the way YOU like it and help is there.
>>
>> Just a short comment before I leave my Mac for a week.
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Merry Christmas and a Blenderfull Year
>>
>> Jef
>>
>>
>> Op 23-dec-05 om 00:49 heeft Ewout Fernhout het volgende geschreven:
>>
>>> Hello Frédéric,
>>> First of all I want to start by saying you did a great job at making
>>> this quickstart chart. It's nice for people to have on their desks
>>> when they just downloaded blender and don't know where to start. It's
>>> a very good reference for those difficult first days :o)
>>>
>>> Now I think there's a few things we want to accomplish with this
>>> chart. The most important and also the most obvious thing is that we
>>> want to show the user how blender works. However, that's not the only
>>> thing in my opinion. It needs to shine a bit aswell, after all this
>>> will be used by artists, not technicians! I totally understand your
>>> comments about being distracted, but only partly agree in this case.
>>> Especially since you do not seem to be working by this principle
>>> yourself. I found it very strange that you tried to make the icons
>>> something they are not. Why do you make 'fancy' vector icons that are
>>> based on the icons in the GUI, instead of actually using those? After
>>> all, that's what the user sees! It looks like you tried to make the
>>> document "shining" (as you call it) there aswell...
>>> Also, you say that the user knows it's Blender, but that doesn't mean
>>> it doesn't need the Blender stilo (and logo for that matter).
>>> I actually think that the chart is something between a marketing
>>> brochure and an educative document, since the user needs to be
>>> 'persuaded' to use blender. Look at it this way: if the user got a 
>>> dry
>>> list of shortkeys and icons without any stiling, he/she would 
>>> probably
>>> not be encouraged to read it.
>>>
>>> I find the ink problem a non-argument. That's for poor people, they
>>> should probably not print at all. If it was a whole book(let) I would
>>> agree, but this is just a sheet of paper, where a couple of more
>>> inkspots don't matter that much. Again, it's not a russian technical
>>> document (nofi). I do agree on the saturation, but it's hard 
>>> balancing
>>> between boring and attractive.
>>>
>>> That said, I think we can draw some conclusions about how the 
>>> document
>>> should look (these are all my opinion and I invite everyone to 
>>> discuss
>>> this).
>>>
>>> * The document should be clearly structured, so the user can easily 
>>> find things.
>>> * Attention should be drawn to the important things.
>>> * The icons should be the actual icons used, not some fancy loose 
>>> interpretation
>>> * It's Blender, don't make it look like a generic document. Style
>>> consistency comforts the user/reader. What does a Blender logo
>>> hurt/break?
>>>
>>> Now about the colors. I think that, if I had to choose between your
>>> greyish blue or blender blue, I would opt for the last for 
>>> consistency
>>> and because the greyish blue you used lacks definition in this
>>> context. However, that particular blue is pretty dark, so maybe blue
>>> is not a good choice after all. Blender.org also makes use of a lot 
>>> of
>>> light-grey tints, perhaps use that if you want to save on ink?
>>>
>>> I would still opt for the orange. Why? Because it looks nice. I know
>>> it's saturated, but it's just one page. It's not like people will 
>>> have
>>> to concentrate a lot on the page for long periods of time. I actually
>>> printed the last version by Pierre-Luc Auclair, and it's easy to 
>>> read!
>>> The first comment I would (rather) give is that the font is probably
>>> too small. I know you're aiming for a one page document, but if 
>>> you're
>>> talking about readability, I think that issue is far more important
>>> than the orange bars.
>>>
>>> About the document size: that's probably caused by the soft drop
>>> shadows. Your solution (which is what exactly what I proposed earlier
>>> and nicely done!) is better I think. The header images are just 
>>> taking
>>> 10kb extra, which is not a big case IMO. Even the size it is now,
>>> 200kb, what's that anyway?
>>>
>>> Ewout
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Bf-docboard mailing list
>>> Bf-docboard at projects.blender.org
>>> http://projects.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-docboard
>>>
>>
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