I also think this is not the same as a manual, which should be quick to browse, quick to grasp, with lots of interlinks, with a file format suitable for version control (well, yes, Scribus is xml, I've been told, so it would be /readable/ - but those diffs are really ugly), with out-of-the-box automated generation of online versions of a manual - as can be done with tools like sphinx/readthedocs, doctype, and other tools
Martin and I are thinking gitlab + markdown will suffice for the basis of contribution, and we can worry about scribus and doc publishing later.
Also, it would be good if things like the keyboard+mouse reference and other stuff we already have could be included.
Probably should use markdown code to identify key shortcuts in plain text. Makes them easier to edit, diff, and provides an easy way to add new ones.
Also, crediting people for their work is just something that makes them more willing to contribute (as stated above). CC-By would lose that, after the first iteration, as far as my understanding of the licence goes.
We get into the territory of having to edit each and every diagram or screen capture. It's messy. I think a better credit would be to have a contributor page for those who contribute the most. If that's insufficient credit, I think people might be contributing for the wrong reasons.
Some of the people involved in flossmanualsfr are also long-time contributors to and developers of Inkscape, so that's the relation.
But you see how the licensing gets in the way? We can't use any of it now. People wanted credit more than they wanted to have the contents be reusable. GPL is for software. People try to rewrite for content, but that's not what it's for. Worse, it imposes more restrictions than CC-BY.
I think it's best to say something like: "Unless otherwise stated, all content in this book is CC0, Public Domain." Then, those who require attribution can include it in the caption below the graphics.
The NC licence is maybe a bit overprotective, but I'm all for crediting and having a manual be available for anyone who needs it.
Yes, let's not do NC. The point of this is to get it into as many hands as possible. People want a bit of money to handle printing and distribution, let them. It's less work for the project and more free publicity.
-C
Maren
Am 29.04.2017 um 21:22 schrieb C R:
Also this: http://write.flossmanuals.net/inkscape/
On Sat, Apr 29, 2017 at 8:04 PM, C R <cajhne@...400...> wrote:
Books done in Scribus can be "published" in a variety of ways,....
Yes, I understand that. But I thought Victor was talking about a
hardback
book, like at the link he provided. That kind of book is hard to get published, unless you have some prior agreement with a publisher. At
least
that's my understanding.
We can self-publish, but we'd have to order a thousand copies, which would take some startup funds. I don't think hardback would be necessary. In fact, I don't imagine printing is necessary. We could render out a nice illustration of the book, with "ebook" under it, and people can enjoy the aesthetic without downing a bunch of trees to make physical copies of the manual. Virtual copies have great things like hyperlinks, and text search capabilities. So there are more benefits to having a digital copy anyway.
Somewhere in this thread was some discussion about licensing. If this
is to
be a hardback book (old fashioned way of publishing) *to me* it makes
more
sense to carry a copyright.
The only requirement for a published physical book is an isbn number (for product catalog, and inventory purposes). The license of the book, as I understand it, is left completely open to the authors. We would not have this published by a company interested in owning the copyright, of course.
As far as I understand, publishers take a cut of sales. And if it's a public domain content, there wouldn't be many sales. It seems like it would make it even harder to find a publisher.
A publisher isn't necessary for this project, assuming the content is what's important. If we want book sales out of this, that's the point where it will become an issue.
I don't know, maybe I'm old and old fashioned. But the FLOSS manual,
on the
other hand, certainly should be either public domain, or CC-BY-NC-SA
might
be better. Whatever it needs to have, to allow the community to edit.
All I can guarantee is that my contributions will be public domain. :)
This is probably a bad idea. But I'm trying to think outside the box.
What
if I (or other non-French-speaker) took one of the French pages, and
sent it
through the public google and/or bing translators. I know those are far from perfect. (Sooooo far!) But since I know Inkscape, it seems like
it
would give me enough of a clue what it's about, to be able to write it properly in English.
Well, translation plus proof-reading is fine I'd think. It's not like the subject matter would be alien to you. :) Fact is, you could easily re-write from scratch the missing sections in English, then we would be able to use it in our own "official" Inkscape manual too.
Then maybe the translators can proof read it, to make sure something important wasn't missed? Proof reading would seem to be much less time-consuming for them.
Would that work??
All best, brynn
As I understand it, the Inkscape Project has nothing to do with flossmanuals, so perhaps it's beyond the scope of this project.
-----Original Message----- From: C R Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2017 9:54 AM To: brynn Cc: Inkscape-Docs ; Inkscape Devel List ; Maren Hachmann ; Victor
Westmann
Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Any chance we can make some docs material? (targeting the moon)
I don't mean to slow anyone's roll here. But wouldn't it make more
sense
to put any kind of energy towards documentation into the much discussed,
direly
needed, user-focused, step by step manual? Rather than starting from scratch
on a
whole different kind of project?
Yea, this actually makes a lot of sense as a first step.
There are many books out there already, which amount to a series of tutorials. It's not a bad thing. I just think this kind of project is better
suited
for a single author, or maybe a small team. And I think the project needs
the
manual much, more more than the community needs another book of tutorials.
I agree. I think the book could be a lot of things in one. But I agree with finishing what we already have before starting something new.
As far as I understand, all that's needed is an English translation of...well can't find a link to the French version. Here's a link to whatever has been translated already: https://fr.flossmanuals.net/start-with-inkscape/introduction/
I can't help with translation, unfortunately. But I'd like to see this finished. So +1 for the suggestion.
Once we have the translation, we'll be off and running to update and finish it! By the way, is there anything those of us who can't translate, can do,
to
help the translators?
I volunteer to help this effort in what ways are needed.
And won't such a new book of tutorials have to be published? A big obstacle to writing any book is getting it published. You almost have to have an invitation from a publisher to be certain a book will get published. Or publish
it
yourself, which is not easy eitiher.
Books done in Scribus can be "published" in a variety of ways, opened in browsers, laptops, eReaders, or just printed out. We could sell printed copies along with other Inkscape stuff. Maybe copies signed by members of the project would be kinda cool. No idea what the market is for it, but the idea that we could do all of these at once is attractive, and why I recommend Scribus.
-C
Just my opinion :-)
brynn
-----Original Message----- From: Maren Hachmann Sent: Friday, April 28, 2017 4:01 PM To: Inkscape-Docs ; Inkscape Devel List Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Any chance we can make some docs
material?
(targeting the moon)
Would it make sense to use gitlab's new subgroups feature for this?
The inkscape-docs team could be a sub-team of Inkscape, that way. There are only 4 members as of now, so changing wouldn't be so difficult as
it
might be later on.
Maren
Am 28.04.2017 um 16:14 schrieb Martin Owens:
On Fri, 2017-04-28 at 12:39 +0100, C R wrote: > > I'd love to quit my job and just do docs. :) Unfortunately, that's > what it would probably take to get docs going to the extent we'd > like. > It's been discussed before, but never gone anywhere because of lack > of time/hands involved. > > Yes, we should use Scribus to do it. In fact, it should probably be
a
> github project to attract contributors. This way we can patch what > needs to be patched when stuff changes in subsequent releases.
Sounds like you have a solid step one Chris.
Here's the inkscape-docs group on gitlab, EVERYONE should join, there should be a button to join:
https://gitlab.com/inkscape-docs
And here's the new book/manual/docs project where files can be put:
https://gitlab.com/inkscape/manuals
I recommend using the wiki attached to the project to plan the adventure slowly. Add a bit at a time and don't rush to have
something
"complete" but have something small produced.
Best Regards, Martin Owens
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