Do we want a Documentation blog?

A few days ago, Nino Novak asked "is there a documentation blog?" and I
answered, "Not that I know of, but perhaps we should start one if there
isn't one already. I can easily set one up on blogspot or similar and
have it added to the LO planet. What do the rest of you think?"

The silence may answer that question, but just in case you missed it in
a thread on another topic, I'm asking it again.

Some things we could do with a blog:
1) Announce publication of chapters, books, other documents.
2) Announce what we're working on, and ask for more people to join in.
3) Remind people of things we'd like to do, and ask for people to
contribute.
4) Describe ideas for new docs or improvements to old ones, asking for
comments.
5) No doubt others: add your ideas.

I do not see a blog as a substitute for what we do on this list, or as a
place to discuss everyday working details. I see it as more of a place
for announcements, but with a way for others to comment. With the social
networking buttons available, it would provide an easy way for people to
pass on info to their networks: in other words, publicity for us and the
docs we produce.

Comments?

--Jean

+1, it's a very good way to reach a broader audience.
I always like also the blog entries Ufi did on tips and tricks. May be there is no need for a long post like Ufi wrote, but often when working on the help file, there is small tips that I would like to emphasize/share.
As an example of this small thing but useful and hard to know: the fact that filling the user data allow the author to open the doc at the last cursor position when saving, while at the beginning for the others.
May be you will find it to users oriented and not enough documentation focused, that's just an idea :slight_smile:

Kind regards
Sophie

+1, it's a very good way to reach a broader audience.

I always like also the blog entries Ufi did on tips and tricks. May be
there is no need for a long post like Ufi wrote, but often when working on
the help file, there is small tips that I would like to emphasize/share.
As an example of this small thing but useful and hard to know: the fact
that filling the user data allow the author to open the doc at the last
cursor position when saving, while at the beginning for the others.
May be you will find it to users oriented and not enough documentation
focused, that's just an idea :slight_smile:

Kind regards
Sophie

It is probably a good idea for a tips and tricks, how to do some one thing

per post, type blog. I haven't checked all of blog planet so I don't know if
anyone else is doing that but if they are, maybe asking them to join the
"official" blog would be nice. There could be multiple authors, maybe
specializing in one module or another or writing macros or formulae, and
each writing at least one post per week.

John

Tips! I like that idea. We could also link to tips and info published by
other people.

Thanks, Sophie.

--Jean

Jean

A few days ago, Nino Novak asked "is there a documentation blog?" and I
answered, "Not that I know of, but perhaps we should start one if there
isn't one already. I can easily set one up on blogspot or similar and
have it added to the LO planet. What do the rest of you think?"

The silence may answer that question, but just in case you missed it in
a thread on another topic, I'm asking it again.

Some things we could do with a blog:
1) Announce publication of chapters, books, other documents.
2) Announce what we're working on, and ask for more people to join in.
3) Remind people of things we'd like to do, and ask for people to
contribute.
4) Describe ideas for new docs or improvements to old ones, asking for
comments.
5) No doubt others: add your ideas.

I do not see a blog as a substitute for what we do on this list, or as a
place to discuss everyday working details. I see it as more of a place
for announcements, but with a way for others to comment. With the social
networking buttons available, it would provide an easy way for people to
pass on info to their networks: in other words, publicity for us and the
docs we produce.

Comments?

--Jean

Could we have a column like MS Crazy Office Lady covering a variety of
topics.

I had to look that up. What I found was "Crabby Office Lady":
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/CH010149515.aspx?CTT=97

That's a really good suggestion and fits in with Sophie's comment about
including usage tips. A column would work best if someone (or several
people) were available to write articles regularly, but there's no
reason why people can't do an occasional article, short tip, etc. We can
also link to articles on other people's blogs, or ask for permission to
republish them. Many people are more likely to read the blog if it has
more than just announcements on it.

--Jean

I would recommend that one person be responsible for say a biweekly
blog, whether that person actually writes or has someone else is open. I
think if there is live person for contact it may be more effective.

Any suggestions for the first few topics? I could write something in the
next few days, just do not have a topic off the top of my head.

Like Crabby I think it should focus on tips and tricks to do more with
LO than answer very specific user questions.

We (as a group) haven't even decided whether to have a blog, and already
we've got a volunteer to write articles! This is great! :smiley:

Let me think a bit and I should be able to come up with a list of
possible topics. Others are very welcome to suggest some, too. We should
probably start a wiki page for them.

BTW, I usually get my ideas from user questions and then try to expand
on them into a more general discussion or tip on a subject. The other
way around is to look at some of the topics in the user guides and write
a specific example to illustrate the topic.

--Jean

+1
I used to follow http://openoffice.blogs.com/ (no longer updated I think)
which had a RSS feed, very useful to see what was published. Identi.ca or
Twitter would also work as an informing medium.

regards
M

I would like to see a series of articles on using styles and templates
in LO Writer, aimed at people coming from MS Word and focusing on when,
why, what for as well as how, using common tasks to illustrate the
concepts.

For example, page styles are fundamental to using Writer, but many
people coming from Word are expecting to do things using "sections" that
Writer does using page styles ("sections" serve a different purpose in
Writer).

Templates have some fundamental uses, too, that many people don't
discover. For example, many MSWord users expect something similar to
Word's normal.dot, and don't make the connection to using a self-defined
default template. (Does Word 2007 still have normal.dot?)

Less specific to former Word users: Most people don't use paragraph
styles, probably because they don't understand all the ways in which
para styles can make their work easier... things like automatic tables
of contents (using heading styles). For more advanced users, there is
the feature for assigning any para style to an outline level.

All the cool things one can do with the Navigator.

Removing personal and other info before distributing a document.

Mail merge.

Page layout techniques: page styles, columns, frames, tables, sections.
When to use which, plus usage tips.

For more advanced users:
* Including chapter numbers in page, figure, and table numbers
* Any "gotchas" with TOCs & indexes when numbering by chapter
* Various techniques for single-sourcing (creating >1 document from one
ODT):
  - Conditional text & hidden text, paragraphs, sections
  - Including sections
  - Variables

Sound and video in Impress.

Cool stuff you can do with Draw. Several things in the Draw Guide could
be made into articles, especially items from the Tips & Tricks chapter.

More later!

--Jean

Jean

> Any suggestions for the first few topics? I could write something in the
> next few days, just do not have a topic off the top of my head.
>
> Like Crabby I think it should focus on tips and tricks to do more with
> LO than answer very specific user questions.
> --
> Jay Lozier
> Jslozier@gmail.com
>

I would like to see a series of articles on using styles and templates
in LO Writer, aimed at people coming from MS Word and focusing on when,
why, what for as well as how, using common tasks to illustrate the
concepts.

For example, page styles are fundamental to using Writer, but many
people coming from Word are expecting to do things using "sections" that
Writer does using page styles ("sections" serve a different purpose in
Writer).

Templates have some fundamental uses, too, that many people don't
discover. For example, many MSWord users expect something similar to
Word's normal.dot, and don't make the connection to using a self-defined
default template. (Does Word 2007 still have normal.dot?)

Less specific to former Word users: Most people don't use paragraph
styles, probably because they don't understand all the ways in which
para styles can make their work easier... things like automatic tables
of contents (using heading styles). For more advanced users, there is
the feature for assigning any para style to an outline level.

All the cool things one can do with the Navigator.

Removing personal and other info before distributing a document.

Mail merge.

Page layout techniques: page styles, columns, frames, tables, sections.
When to use which, plus usage tips.

For more advanced users:
* Including chapter numbers in page, figure, and table numbers
* Any "gotchas" with TOCs & indexes when numbering by chapter
* Various techniques for single-sourcing (creating >1 document from one
ODT):
  - Conditional text & hidden text, paragraphs, sections
  - Including sections
  - Variables

Sound and video in Impress.

Cool stuff you can do with Draw. Several things in the Draw Guide could
be made into articles, especially items from the Tips & Tricks chapter.

More later!

--Jean

It looks like the first three are templates, styles, and mail merge. I
have used templates in MS Word for years and found them very convenient.
Also another feature I like to use in Write is automatic data entry
fields within a template.