[Bf-docboard] Manual scope

[Pep Ribal]

I explained my view on the subject a few days ago. To summarize:

-There should be both a manual AND a reference.
-Manual sections should be pretty much the same there are now (modeling,
rendering, rigging, animation,...)
-Reference sections should be broken, into editors.
-Manual can then link to information in the reference.
-The current "editors" section in the manual doesn't make any sense, as
this is exactly the Blender reference.

I emphasize the need to set up a team asap, and start meetings and
decisions, assignments and deadlines. Otherwise, I feel the blender
documentation discussion as a chronic incurable disease.

I'm not just pointing out what you should do. I'm also offering my help in
whatever you need.

Regards.

Pep.


2015-01-25 4:03 GMT+08:00 Wim Teuling <wfteuling at yahoo.com>:

> A reference manual is a great idea: every other manual I read or worked
> with is exactly that: a place to quickly find information how to use a
> particular tool. No fluff, and focused. Once users know the terminology and
> basic usage principles, this should enable them to look for tutorials.
>
> A reference manual, however, requires an solid and robust structure, and
> should offer a good search function. This is currently not the case with
> Blender's manual, or at least only partly true, unfortunately.
>
> A basic search for "selection", or "selection methods" results in a
> useless search result. Trying to find "selection" as a category in the
> current manual structure yields nothing! I would expect that to be part of
> "Basics" under "Getting Started".
>
>
>
>
>   On Saturday, January 24, 2015 5:20 AM, Greg Zaal <gregzzmail at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> I'd agree - a reference manual seems like a much more easily reached
> target. I myself would prefer to have a good reference available than a
> guided manual.
>
> It would definitely make maintenance simpler, and would be easier to write
> since it requires less teaching and language skills than a guided manual.
>
> If people still wish to write tutorials and in-depth examples, these can
> be done elsewhere (personal wiki pages, forums, blogs, etc) and linked to
> from the manual. This is already done occasionally, for example the array
> modifier (
> http://blender.org/manual/modifiers/generate/array.html#tutorials) links
> to some external resources.
>
> On 24 January 2015 at 08:56, Campbell Barton <ideasman42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> It was suggested by @el_diablo that we might consider restricting the
> manual to being a reference manual.
>
> see:
>
> http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?360263-Blender-User-Manual-Official-Call-for-Help!&p=2803818&viewfull=1#post2803818
>
> This doesn't mean we have to make this simply lists of button
> descriptions, we should still make this text for users and give some
> guidance (usage info and tips).
>
> Examples of pages I'd consider reasonable for a 'reference manual'
>
> -
> https://www.blender.org/manual/modeling/meshes/editing/subdividing/knife_subdivide.html
> - https://www.blender.org/manual/modifiers/generate/solidify.html
> -
> https://www.blender.org/manual/getting_started/basics/interface/buttons_and_controls.html
>
> This means we wouldn't attempt anything like tutorials or howto's.
>
> The main reasons I suggest this is...
>
> - So far we only have a small group of active writers.
> - This is what the manual is for the mostpart anyway.
> - The few tutorials from the wiki were OK (at best),
> ... Youtube, blender.stackexchange & dedicated tutorial sites are far
> better suited to helping users with spesific interests.
> - This is something developers can keep up tp date when functionality
> is changed, without giving us pages of text to maintain.
>
> --
> - Campbell
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-docboard mailing list
> Bf-docboard at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-docboard
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-docboard mailing list
> Bf-docboard at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-docboard
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-docboard mailing list
> Bf-docboard at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-docboard
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.blender.org/pipermail/bf-docboard/attachments/20150125/d7c936f2/attachment.htm