A short time ago, those of us who had been actively discussing the
manual on the inkscape-docs list agreed that FLOSS Manuals
(
http://flossmanuals.net <
http://flossmanuals.net/>) was our best option
for keeping an official manual up-to-date while encouraging
non-technical users to contribute. It has a simple interface, is readily
available (it is a web application), and there exist translation tools
which are being actively developed to provide a usable translation
interface. There are many other benefits to using FLOSS Manuals (FM) as
well: we would have the ability to organize different setups of manuals
/ how-tos by arranging existing content into new “manuals”; to generate
manuals in different distributable formats (export as pdf, html, and
even print online with
lulu.com, et cetera). These powerful capabilities
create an exciting possibility to build and maintain a dynamic manual
with minimal effort.
Recently, FM has received a small grant from Google to host a “book
sprint”. Adam Hyde of FM has personally invited some of the members from
the inkscape-docs list to join him for the book sprint in order to flesh
out a basic, up-to-date manual using the FM tools. (If you have not seen
how this works yet, you can go to the website and check it out. Since
our manual has only some test material in it, you cannot yet view it as
a manual, but if you set up user account, you can view it in the edit
mode.)
While FM has certain guidelines which the book sprint must follow and
goals to accomplish, we will be discussing on inkscape-docs the
particulars which we want the book sprint to produce in order to make it
most productive for both FM and Inkscape. Adam will be active in this
discussion, and help guide it so that it proceeds toward both FLOSS
Manual goals and Inkscape Docs goals. Anyone who would like to
participate in this discussion is welcome and encouraged to do so.
Also, anyone is welcome and encouraged to take part in the actual book
sprint itself, which will be taking place from July 5^th through the
12^th in Paris. Participants are welcome either in person, if you are
able, or else by internet. (Details will follow on inkscape-docs as they
are worked out.)
The committed participants thus far are:
Adam Hyde (from FLOSS Manuals)
Brianna Laugher from Wikimedia (
http://brianna.modernthings.org
<
http://brianna.modernthings.org/>)
Cédric Gemy (pygmee)
Elisa de Castro Guerra (yemanja)
Alexandre Prokoudine
and I (Joshua Facemyer)
We are all looking forward to spending some time getting to know each
other better, seeing Paris (those of us who don't live there ;) and,
most importantly, putting together an Inkscape Manual for the betterment
of the Inkscape community!