Hi Maren, Just to let you know I made that change in the FAQ re the Roadmap. I also made a couple of edits to #A.10. (animation). (Corrected some not quite correct info, removed the reference to the animation extension in the wiki (which really is outdated and hasn't been active for a while) and replaced with link to Snap.svg.)
All best, brynn
Thanks, Brynn, I'll forward to translators.
Regards, Maren
Am 22.06.2015 um 16:42 schrieb Brynn:
Hi Maren, Just to let you know I made that change in the FAQ re the Roadmap. I also made a couple of edits to #A.10. (animation). (Corrected some not quite correct info, removed the reference to the animation extension in the wiki (which really is outdated and hasn't been active for a while) and replaced with link to Snap.svg.)
All best, brynn
Hi all
it’s good to see new threads on this list which to be quiet for a long time. As myself, Prokoudine and Yemanjalisa were previously involved in an Inkscape User Manual, I think it can be interesting to share our past experience in this process and why we failed in having it as an inkscape community project.
First I was doing a manual for Sodipodi, so I found natural to go on with Inkscape after we forked. At this time wiki were not as well known and there was a wish to use an XML technology (you know, this SVGish language!). Benchmarking other documentation project, i found Gimp’s one was good, based on Docbook, with many output capacities.
Later, few people came up and many found Docbook to hard to learn just to build a documentation.
In the meantime, changes in Inkscape were very numerous and it was too hard to keep the manual up-to-date. One thing we managed to have at this time was getting a good description of new features and changes (not only bug titles displayed in list). This helped a lot and developpers are now going on in the release notes, even if it sometimes decrease.
Two main things made the "official" manual fail at this time : - it has never been linked in Inkscape Help Menu, some arguing that Tutorials were enough and some that Tav's book was enough, depending on their point of view. I irced a lot with BByak or JonC but we didn’t get the link. - Inkscape team migrated to launchpad in a time we were out of the process, so that we had the bad surprise to see that the manual had been forgotten and that noone had energy to rebuild it even from archives. Rules to write access changed and i was not elligible anymore…
This approximately when Flossmanuals came with a Google rent. The doc team had a few days meeting in Paris to write another documentation using their process. Pygmee (myself), Prokoudine, Yemanjalisa, JFacemayer were involved and we got some results with help from some other contributors, especially, this made Jazzynico join our team and then the dev team.
Actually it seems that this manual stayed a foreign project and that nobody had the idea to link Inkscape to it, and that the manual didn’t evolve. The french part of the team has been quite active : - we have a complete introduction to inkscape : http://www.flossmanualsfr.net/initiation-inkscape/ (GPLv2) - Yemanjalisa and Jazzynico have wrote an inkscape book that is now released under free license that is going to be put on the FM website asap
All this content, and others, might help build a new User Manual. There are also many content we all have or we can find on the web.
I think the real problem is not in content, it is not in technology neither. The main thing to do is to define the goals and get organized. FlossManuals has now a large experience in this process. Especially yemanjalisa who get to manage about 20 manual writing process about several free software (puredata, arduino, blender, scribus…). The general approach is to give readers the key to understand the software (not just show how to do this or that with a somewhat progressive way). I still think it is important to have a link from within inkscape (many people still don’t know how to use correctly a search engine) : this is just a python script to customize but someone would have to commit it
For the best pygmee
Hi pygmee,
thank you for your user manual history! It was indeed an interesting read :)
I'm on the inkscape-web team (who took advantage of the existing mailing list here), so I cannot say anything about links in the program's help menu - but I would certainly like to see Nico and Elisa's introductory manual linked from the French version of the website.
We only have the old, outdated, English version (http://en.flossmanuals.net/inkscape) linked, from this page: https://inkscape.org/en/learn/books/ :-(
Has there been anyone showing interest to make an English translation of this really good, user oriented, 172 pages long (but French) document? Some translators might prefer to translate from English to their own language, that's why I ask ;)
For those who don't understand French on this list: The focus of that new document is a user-oriented approach, not aiming for completeness - like Tav's book, which is a much more technical description - but enabling users to start having fun with Inkscape, and to remove the obstacles many of the beginners run into when they first 'meet' Inkscape.
I like both kinds of manuals - they complement each other very well :)
If you'd like me to, I could ask among the translators' team, if someone would like to / can help with translation to English (although a few of them, of who I know that they speak French, are already the authors ;) ). I would think that an English version is a precondition for any manual to be included into Inkscape's menus (not that I know anything about this).
We could also make a news article for the website, if that would be of any help in searching for translators. If someone from your team would like to write one, chances are 100% that it will be published on the website :) We can then also forward the info to Josh, who manages our social media accounts.
A more theoretical question: Would Elisa or someone else from FLOSSmanuals some day want to brave a second effort of organizing people for Inkscape Docs? To make a manual which aims for completeness, *and* user-friendly-ness? That's a huge task, I think, though... and it could also use some help from the developers, for a few of the more complex functions that are still undocumented. (I'd volunteer to help with German translations and proof-reading - but those are only at the *veeery* end of the chain of any manual...)
Thank you again, for all that info, pygmee. It would be so cool if this would result in a free, and easily accessible manual for Inkscape (and thanks to Elisa and Nico for writing it, of course!!!)
Kind regards, Maren
Am 22.06.2015 um 22:20 schrieb pygmee:
Hi all
it’s good to see new threads on this list which to be quiet for a long time. As myself, Prokoudine and Yemanjalisa were previously involved in an Inkscape User Manual, I think it can be interesting to share our past experience in this process and why we failed in having it as an inkscape community project.
First I was doing a manual for Sodipodi, so I found natural to go on with Inkscape after we forked. At this time wiki were not as well known and there was a wish to use an XML technology (you know, this SVGish language!). Benchmarking other documentation project, i found Gimp’s one was good, based on Docbook, with many output capacities.
Later, few people came up and many found Docbook to hard to learn just to build a documentation.
In the meantime, changes in Inkscape were very numerous and it was too hard to keep the manual up-to-date. One thing we managed to have at this time was getting a good description of new features and changes (not only bug titles displayed in list). This helped a lot and developpers are now going on in the release notes, even if it sometimes decrease.
Two main things made the "official" manual fail at this time : - it has never been linked in Inkscape Help Menu, some arguing that Tutorials were enough and some that Tav's book was enough, depending on their point of view. I irced a lot with BByak or JonC but we didn’t get the link. - Inkscape team migrated to launchpad in a time we were out of the process, so that we had the bad surprise to see that the manual had been forgotten and that noone had energy to rebuild it even from archives. Rules to write access changed and i was not elligible anymore…
This approximately when Flossmanuals came with a Google rent. The doc team had a few days meeting in Paris to write another documentation using their process. Pygmee (myself), Prokoudine, Yemanjalisa, JFacemayer were involved and we got some results with help from some other contributors, especially, this made Jazzynico join our team and then the dev team.
Actually it seems that this manual stayed a foreign project and that nobody had the idea to link Inkscape to it, and that the manual didn’t evolve. The french part of the team has been quite active : - we have a complete introduction to inkscape : http://www.flossmanualsfr.net/initiation-inkscape/ (GPLv2) - Yemanjalisa and Jazzynico have wrote an inkscape book that is now released under free license that is going to be put on the FM website asap
All this content, and others, might help build a new User Manual. There are also many content we all have or we can find on the web.
I think the real problem is not in content, it is not in technology neither. The main thing to do is to define the goals and get organized. FlossManuals has now a large experience in this process. Especially yemanjalisa who get to manage about 20 manual writing process about several free software (puredata, arduino, blender, scribus…). The general approach is to give readers the key to understand the software (not just show how to do this or that with a somewhat progressive way). I still think it is important to have a link from within inkscape (many people still don’t know how to use correctly a search engine) : this is just a python script to customize but someone would have to commit it
For the best pygmee
Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager!
OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:07 AM, Maren Hachmann wrote:
A more theoretical question: Would Elisa or someone else from FLOSSmanuals some day want to brave a second effort of organizing people for Inkscape Docs? To make a manual which aims for completeness, *and* user-friendly-ness?
Having participatied in the making of the first one, I still have to ask: why would it be superior to Tav's one?
The way I see it, not having yet another complete user manual is a non-issue. What the community does need is tons, tons of high-quality step-by-step tutorials how to design good-looking works of art. But for that to happen you need to find people who are actual artists and get them to write that stuff. Not an eas thing to do.
Alex
Am 23.06.2015 um 03:46 schrieb Alexandre Prokoudine:
On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:07 AM, Maren Hachmann wrote:
A more theoretical question: Would Elisa or someone else from FLOSSmanuals some day want to brave a second effort of organizing people for Inkscape Docs? To make a manual which aims for completeness, *and* user-friendly-ness?
Having participatied in the making of the first one, I still have to ask: why would it be superior to Tav's one?
For licencing, reuse and collaborative editing reasons - sharing the work to make keeping things up-to-date easier, maybe even asking developers to document their new features, or changes to features, themselves, being the ones who know most about them.
And then allowing others to edit that info, to make it accessible to the average user, in case the language is too technical / not written by a native speaker.
Also for allowing offline usage or even shipping with Inkscape. I might be a little old-fashioned in that respect, though, in that I like to be able to use a manual offline, too...
But as I said - it's a more theoretical question, I don't expect it to happen. Maybe it's possible to instead support Tav somehow, then?
The way I see it, not having yet another complete user manual is a non-issue. What the community does need is tons, tons of high-quality step-by-step tutorials how to design good-looking works of art. But for that to happen you need to find people who are actual artists and get them to write that stuff. Not an eas thing to do.
- Yep, I agree, tutorials are a great resource - I love your site and visit it frequently :) Thank you very much for all the work you invest into this!
Kind Regards, Maren
Alex
Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
Hi Everyone, (sorry, this is a little long) I agree with all Maren's points. Having a manual written by a team, with a free license, which allows it to be edited in the future, is a good idea. I certainly would volunteer to help with that.
Tav's manual is awesome, but as someone who answers a pretty large share of questions in forums (and occasionally LP Answers and the User list), it seems that many people have looked at it, and found it not helpful. Over and over and over again, questions are posted in forums, which are easily answered in the manual, except that the user somehow has not understood it. I guess some of them are lazy, and didn't look at it, but I can't believe that they all are.
I think Inkscape could find a whole new group of users, with a manual that has more of a step by step approach. I made an effort (a while ago) at starting a manual, based on a step by step approach. I had seen some requests from a couple of different people for tutorials or a manual that people with with ADD or ADHD can understand. (Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, as far as I understand them, are both childhood learning disabilities, and often outgrown, but it seems that more and more, people make it to adulthood, without outgrowing it, and need help with reading.) The step by step approach is very helpful for this group, apparently.
Even though that group (of adults who never outgrew their learning disorder) is probably very small, I still think a step by step approach in a manual would introduce a lot more people to Inkscape. Plus, having a free license, and a team to write/edit it, the load doesn't fall all on 1 person. And the manual can evolve and change, as needed with new versions, without delays.
Too bad I can't read French. I would love to see that manual!
I also agree about the need for tutorials, but I don't think tutorials can take the place of a step by step manual. Well, not unless the tutorials all follow a similar format and use the same terminology (as if written by the same person or group).
This community has produced.....hundreds, and probably thousands of tutorials, over the last 5 years. Only a fraction of those are what I consider "good". I've seen Inkscape tutorials calling nodes "points", for example. So unless there is some "quality control" over all these many tutorials, they can't take the place of a manual, in my opinion.
All best, brynn
-------------------------------------------------- From: "Maren Hachmann" <maren@...68...> Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2015 10:29 AM To: inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-docs] User Manual history
Am 23.06.2015 um 03:46 schrieb Alexandre Prokoudine:
On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:07 AM, Maren Hachmann wrote:
A more theoretical question: Would Elisa or someone else from FLOSSmanuals some day want to brave a second effort of organizing people for Inkscape Docs? To make a manual which aims for completeness, *and* user-friendly-ness?
Having participatied in the making of the first one, I still have to ask: why would it be superior to Tav's one?
For licencing, reuse and collaborative editing reasons - sharing the work to make keeping things up-to-date easier, maybe even asking developers to document their new features, or changes to features, themselves, being the ones who know most about them.
And then allowing others to edit that info, to make it accessible to the average user, in case the language is too technical / not written by a native speaker.
Also for allowing offline usage or even shipping with Inkscape. I might be a little old-fashioned in that respect, though, in that I like to be able to use a manual offline, too...
But as I said - it's a more theoretical question, I don't expect it to happen. Maybe it's possible to instead support Tav somehow, then?
The way I see it, not having yet another complete user manual is a non-issue. What the community does need is tons, tons of high-quality step-by-step tutorials how to design good-looking works of art. But for that to happen you need to find people who are actual artists and get them to write that stuff. Not an eas thing to do.
- Yep, I agree, tutorials are a great resource - I love your site and
visit it frequently :) Thank you very much for all the work you invest into this!
Kind Regards, Maren
Alex
Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
Hi, all.
I was also a contributor in the (first ever!!!) FLOSSManuals booksprint in Paris, which was awesome. (Alexandre DID order the champignons, BTW. The waiter was wrong :)
I continually regret that this hasn't gone anywhere. I think about it all the time, and have made a few starts to revive the project on the English side over the years.
Unfortunately, I have little time, with a growing family (wife and 5 kids, now) and full-time work, a small business on the side, and many other small projects that are always coming up.
Additionally, it's been difficult to find any other English-speaking writers who really want to commit. (I do a whole lot better with at least one other enthusiastic person, but regardless, it's more than one already overworked person can really do alone.)
I think part of the reason for this, as Alexandre mentions, is that people already see a really good and mostly complete manual from Tav, so why do we need another one?
Of course, the counter to this is that Tav's isn't an open community project. I don't know the licensing, but would it even be possible to continue developing it if he stopped?
So I think some discussion is merited about whether it is more desirable to create an official community manual, or to trust that Tav's will always be sufficient.
My 2 cents.
JF
On 06/22/2015 09:46 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine wrote:
On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 3:07 AM, Maren Hachmann wrote:
A more theoretical question: Would Elisa or someone else from FLOSSmanuals some day want to brave a second effort of organizing people for Inkscape Docs? To make a manual which aims for completeness, *and* user-friendly-ness?
Having participatied in the making of the first one, I still have to ask: why would it be superior to Tav's one?
The way I see it, not having yet another complete user manual is a non-issue. What the community does need is tons, tons of high-quality step-by-step tutorials how to design good-looking works of art. But for that to happen you need to find people who are actual artists and get them to write that stuff. Not an eas thing to do.
Alex
Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
On 27 June 2015 at 22:37, Joshua Facemyer <jfacemyer@...2...> wrote:
Of course, the counter to this is that Tav's isn't an open community project. I don't know the licensing, but would it even be possible to continue developing it if he stopped?
I wonder somewhat offhand how expensive it would be to buy tav out and have it open sourced.
Martin,
Hello,
Thanks pygmee to this history. I am happy to see you again Joshua, congratulation for your big family.
Regarding the two manuals i contribute : - initiation a inkscape = beguin with inkscape http://fr.flossmanuals.net/initiation-inkscape/introduction/ i'm very happy if this manual will be translated into english to be linked or included to inkscape 's project, even the french version for the french inkscape localisation. It's under GPL licence - premier pas avec inkscape with jazzynico (first steps with inkscape) : i am in favour too in be translated or linked.
After this first amaizing experience with the google rent in participate in an inkscape booksprint, i am now manager of Floss Manuals francophone and facilitate numerous booksprint. We wrote severals books in this mode.
I am very enthousiastic to creat and manage other booksprint about inkscape to creat new documentation. We are totally agree with you Brynn, documentation have to be step by step, good illustrated and good explained, and, like Prokoudine says, with very good examples.
If we found some good english proofreader or good translator to translate one of our two french beguinners books, we could make several sprint to explain the use of Inkscape for one point : - inkscape for illustrators - inkscape for makers (with ploters, printer 3D, etc) - inkscape for mappers - inkscape for webdesigners - inkcape for ux designers - etc.
We could creat en event for creat this booksprint or associated with a big event (like hackfest, lgm, fosdem, rmll) to manage this booksprint. I think the importance is to be support by the dev team and our doc useful for the official project and include. Not like our first experience with the docwriter team.
yemanjalisa
2015-06-28 6:15 GMT+02:00 Martin Owens <doctormo@...2...>:
On 27 June 2015 at 22:37, Joshua Facemyer <jfacemyer@...2...> wrote:
Of course, the counter to this is that Tav's isn't an open community project. I don't know the licensing, but would it even be possible to continue developing it if he stopped?
I wonder somewhat offhand how expensive it would be to buy tav out and have it open sourced.
Martin,
Monitor 25 network devices or servers for free with OpManager! OpManager is web-based network management software that monitors network devices and physical & virtual servers, alerts via email & sms for fault. Monitor 25 devices for free with no restriction. Download now http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/292181274;119417398;o _______________________________________________ Inkscape-docs mailing list Inkscape-docs@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-docs
participants (7)
-
Alexandre Prokoudine -
Brynn -
Elisa Godoy de Castro Guerra -
Joshua Facemyer -
Maren Hachmann -
Martin Owens -
pygmee