Collecting small things in the Wiki

Hi Tom,
Tom Davies schrieb:

Hi :slight_smile:
3^2 does =9 ?

That's not the problem. But -3^2 result in 9 and that is the problem.
http://openoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26755

Kind regards
Regina

I agree that a structure is essential. And I understand about the hurdle of learning a new tool, even an easy one.

I have now looked at the German wiki pages you referenced. They are much more complete and better organised than anything the English team has done. Perhaps we should have someone translate these pages to English, if we can find someone (more than one person) to do it. Oh, there are so many things we could do if we only had enough people to do them!

Jean

Hi :slight_smile:

Regina, this is not a criticism of you but just some of my anger at the world
that gave me a fairly decent education in sciences and maths and made me
practically unemployable as a result.

Ok, again

-3 x -3 = 9

I think people tend to expect the - to make the result -9. Perhaps they expect
the result to be the same as -(3^2) which is a completely different thing.
Again this is more about people lack of maths understanding than about
spreadsheets. An evening course or on-line course about maths is the answer,
not documentation for a spreadsheet program.

In the bug-report the first comment complains that spreadsheet programs stick to

internationally agreed maths standard for the order in which to apply functions,

Bodmas (stands for "Brackets, of/division, multiplication, add, subtract").
Choosing a non-standards order makes higher functions exponentially difficult or

even impossible. Before the 0 was borrowed from Arabic notation simple
multiplication and division was only possible by people with a university degree

level of maths skills. Choosing to go against Bodmas would be similarly
catastrophic.

Business users like to left align numbers which makes simple addition more
difficult at a glance, for example

£34
£300

Hi :slight_smile:
I was wrong.

I have been thinking a bit more. By Bodmas the subtraction is the last thing on
the list and the multiplication should be done before that. There is an
apparent ambiguity here and people with a maths background 'should' expect that
and either test it or use brackets, at least that is my excuse.

An equation that results in -2 and then the spreadsheet takes that result and
squares it then the result 'should' be (-2)^2 = +4 but the rest of the time -2^2
'should' be -(2^2)

Regard from
Tom :slight_smile:

From: Regina Henschel <rb.henschel@t-online.de>
To: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Fri, 10 June, 2011 23:39:01
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Re: Collecting small things in the
Wiki

Hi Tom,
Tom Davies schrieb:
> Hi :slight_smile:
> 3^2 does =9 ?

That's not the problem. But -3^2 result in 9 and that is the problem.
http://openoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26755

Kind regards
Regina

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Regina

Hi planas,

planas schrieb:
> Regina
>
>
>> Hi documentation members,
>>
>> I'm looking for a place to collect little tips and explanations, for
>> example "Why results the formula =-2^3 in 9?" or "Calc calcutates wrong!
>> 9.87€ + 6.54€ results in 16.42€."
>>
>> And also a place for HowTos, which are not a FAQ and which are to small
>> for a guide, but might be useful. For example an explanation, how to get
>> the coefficients of an interpolation polynomial.
>>
>> It should be outside of your documentation workflow and needs to be
>> easily edited, but have a basic predefined structure.
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Regina
>
>
>
> Could this be integrated with the blog. We have a few how to blogs
> already.

If it is "blog" as I understand blogs, then it will not be suitable. It
is necessary, that it can be edited. It must be possible to correct
errors, to add or remove something later on, to write mathematical
content, to add pictures.

  I think any LO related topic could be discussed in a blog or
> wiki. The difference, I believe, is the target with the blog being
> straightforward how-tos or why-tos and the wiki having more depth for
> topics.

Please have a look at our German Wiki http://www.libreofficewiki.de/. I
look for something similar in English.

Kind regards
Regina

Wordpress has an editable blog for LO. Also, I prefer to send a preview
to a few people on the documentation team before I post anything. I want
errors to be caught before they are posted.

My I distinction is a blog is for relatively "easy" topics rather than
complex topics. The difference is the complex topic may involve either
an apparent work around or real work around to a problem or the
discussion of a complex topic. Your examples above may be better in a
wiki because they touch on rounding by computers and operation order of
precedence, both could be confusing for non-mathematician, scientist, or
engineer. Both could easily get messy for many users.

I think my distinction is more about the length of the post and amount
of detail in the content.

Hi Tom.
I think it is bedmas - brackets, exponentiation, division,
multiplication, addition, subtraction.
There will be a mathematical standard for this, so I suppose we are
theorizing.
To remove all doubt, if you wanted (-3)^2 you would use the brackets
thus and if you wanted -(3^2) you would bracket that way. If there is no
"Standard" then may be with a leading '-' sign LO should ask or auto
correct to one of the bracketed options so it is clear what LO will do
with the number. I have always taken -3^3 = -27 same as LO does now, was
like that throughout university, but who is to say it is correct.
steve

Hi Jean,

I have now looked at the German wiki pages you referenced. They are much more complete and better organised than anything the English team has done. Perhaps we should have someone translate these pages to English, if we can find someone (more than one person) to do it. Oh, there are so many things we could do if we only had enough people to do them!

Silverstripe came with an automatic linking system for translations, but
it got turned off after discussion because it was felt :

1) that the English (or International) part of the site should be the
lead and reference for other parts of the site ; and
2) the translated pages which were automatically linked to the original
end being part of the native-lang subsite and not in the corresponding
EN part of the wiki.

At the moment, if you want to translate on the wiki, you have to have 2
windows open, the first with the original language wiki page, and the
second, a new wiki page on the English part of the site. For me, quite
frankly, this is too much of an effort when the underlying system
already has the capability to link translations automatically to the
underlying original document. I don't like wikis in general anyway
because they tend to end up having stuff all over the place, improperly
indexed or categorized and it just seems to be a free-for-all. The wiki
was set up knowingly with an extremely open approach to encourage
contribution, but the downside of this free ranging management is that
anyone can contribute anything and put it anywhere they more or less
want, and name it in more or less anyway they want to. So much for
having a cohesive, easy to search, easy to update, and easy to maintain
information system. Trying to find out whether something has been
updated, or even if it already exists, requires a lot of effort on the
part of those who are conscientious enough not to want to waste their
time writing something that has already been done or something similar.

I can translate from German to English, French to English and back again
no problem, but I will not trawl the wiki in search of things that "need
translating" from one to the other.

Alex

Hi Regina,

I'm looking for a place to collect little tips and explanations

If you want a wiki, I see only the TDF Wiki and libreofficewiki.de in
place at the moment.

The TDF Wiki you can use right away, but AFAIK there is no Documentation
section yet (I mean where knowledge bits are created in the wiki
itself), it just serves as project whiteboard and as document repository
for the User Guides.

Did you ask Martin if libreofficewiki.de can be tweaked to become
multilingual (and if he is willing to do/host it)? That would be the
quickest solution in my eyes as the German structure could be
transferred to the english instance by just translating the items. I
know that MoinMoin (the wiki engine used) can be set up as mulitilingual
wiki farm but it needs further investigation to see if/how it supports
the concrete needs of this community.

Regards,
Nino

Hi Regina,

I'm looking for a place to collect little tips and explanations

If you want a wiki, I see only the TDF Wiki and libreofficewiki.de in
place at the moment.

The TDF Wiki you can use right away, but AFAIK there is no Documentation
section yet (I mean where knowledge bits are created in the wiki
itself), it just serves as project whiteboard and as document repository
for the User Guides.

Nino, that is true but only because no one has created any content on
the wiki. There is no reason why people should not also create wiki
content there.

Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
I went a little crazy last night. Tooo little chocolate in last few days and
then had so much i passed out. Sorry about posts, especially to Regina.

More at bottom to answer Steve
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

From: Steve Edmonds <steve.edmonds@ptglobal.com>
To: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Sat, 11 June, 2011 5:29:51
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Re: Collecting small things in the
Wiki

> Hi :slight_smile:
>
> Regina, this is not a criticism of you but just some of my anger at the
world

> that gave me a fairly decent education in sciences and maths and made me
> practically unemployable as a result.
>
>
> Ok, again
>
> -3 x -3 = 9
>
> I think people tend to expect the - to make the result -9. Perhaps they
expect

> the result to be the same as -(3^2) which is a completely different thing.

> Again this is more about people lack of maths understanding than about
> spreadsheets. An evening course or on-line course about maths is the
answer,

> not documentation for a spreadsheet program.
>
>
> In the bug-report the first comment complains that spreadsheet programs
stick to

>
> internationally agreed maths standard for the order in which to apply
functions,

>
> Bodmas (stands for "Brackets, of/division, multiplication, add, subtract").

> Choosing a non-standards order makes higher functions exponentially
difficult or

>
> even impossible. Before the 0 was borrowed from Arabic notation simple
> multiplication and division was only possible by people with a university
degree

>
> level of maths skills. Choosing to go against Bodmas would be similarly
> catastrophic.
>
> Business users like to left align numbers which makes simple addition more
> difficult at a glance, for example
>
> £34
> £300
> ======
> £640 ?!!?
>
> Maths people and accountants tend to shudder at left aligned numbers, or
realise

>
> they are likely to make a lot of cash from these people. A right-justified
list

>
> makes it much more obvious
>
> £34
> £300
> =====
> £334 in a much more obvious way. Ok, its a stupid example with only 2
numbers

> in the list but imagine with a LOT more numbers in the list, say 20 to 30
per

> page.
>
>
> Back to the expected result of -9. What is the square root? -3 x 3 is not
> really right. In fact we are now getting towards 2 dimensional numbers
such as

> "imaginary numbers" and perhaps even getting close to chaos theory and
fractal

> dimensions.
>
>
> In the bug-report the first post shows a stunning lack of understanding
about

> maths, roughly along the lines of demanding that the spreadsheet program
should

> give £640 in my example of adding numbers.
>
>
> "
> I definitly see this as a bug and confirm it. Here's what I did:
>
> 1: Input "=-3^2+4" into a spreadsheet cell, result is 13
> 2: Input "=4-3^2" into another cell, result is -5
> 3: Input "=-(3^2)+4" into a third cell, result is -5
>
> The problem here seems to be that the program attaches the negative sign to
the
> 3 in step one before doing the square, which it should not, unless
manipulated
> by parentheses like this: "(-3)^2".
> "
>
> In 1 the result is 13 because the first function done is -3 x -3 = 9, and
then

> add the 4 to give 13
> In 2 the result is due to an ambiguity that is normally resolved by using
the

> standards method of afaik 3 x 3 = 9, and then 4 - 9 = -5 People with maths

> skills generally realise there is a potential problem with the ambiguity
here

> and might try fixing it by using brackets eg = 4 + (-3^2) which gives us 13

> 'obviously' since the inside of the bracket is done before applying the
stuff

> outside the brackets.
>
> In 3 the result is -5 because the bracketed stuff is done first giving us +9

> again, then outside the bracket that is made -+9 = -9 and then the 4 is
added as

> expected.
>
>
> This is maths, not spreadsheet stuff, unless i made a mistake in how #2
should

> be treated according to the Bodmas standards (in which case the bug-report
needs

> to be fixed asap) but afaik i'm right. Even if i am wrong this is not
really a

> job for documentation except as a brief note that 'common-sense' sometimes
> over-rides Bodmas but will hopefully be fixed soon.
>
> Regards from
> Tom :slight_smile:
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Regina Henschel <rb.henschel@t-online.de>
> To: documentation@global.libreoffice.org
> Sent: Fri, 10 June, 2011 23:39:01
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-documentation] Re: Collecting small things in the
Wiki
>
> Hi Tom,
> Tom Davies schrieb:
>
>> Hi :slight_smile:
>> 3^2 does =9 ?
>>
> That's not the problem. But -3^2 result in 9 and that is the problem.
> http://openoffice.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=26755
>
> Kind regards
> Regina
>
> -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to
documentation+help@global.libreoffice.org
> Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
> List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/documentation/
> All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be
deleted
>
>
>
Hi Tom.
I think it is bedmas - brackets, exponentiation, division,
multiplication, addition, subtraction.
There will be a mathematical standard for this, so I suppose we are
theorizing.
To remove all doubt, if you wanted (-3)^2 you would use the brackets
thus and if you wanted -(3^2) you would bracket that way. If there is no
"Standard" then may be with a leading '-' sign LO should ask or auto
correct to one of the bracketed options so it is clear what LO will do
with the number. I have always taken -3^3 = -27 same as LO does now, was
like that throughout university, but who is to say it is correct.
steve

Hi :slight_smile:
Yes the o in Bodmas doesn't make much sense and is not intuitive but i think
it's meant to mean "Orders" referring to orders, powers, indices & exponents,
NOT "omg not this again". In the US they don't have Brackets, they have
simplified it to Parenthesis so a common mnemonic there is Pedmas. Oh and they
simplified Exponents to Exponentiation along with dialogues to dialogz and
Catherine to Katz. I cheekily use tho instead of though but it hasn't kort-on
yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations#Mnemonics

Here are guides to show what level of maths we are talking about
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/maths/mathsC3.htm
http://www.mathsisfun.com/operation-order-bodmas.html
Primary is about equivalent of Elementary in the US. It's from about 4 to about
12 with some regional variations of 1 year, ie sometimes 3 to 11.

The problem and ambiguity arise in computing because there is no difference
between - 1 and -1 in computers but in handwritten notes it is easier to
distinguish whether it is a value of (-1) or the value is (1) and then needs to
be subtracted from whatever precedes the -1 (such as the implied 0). There is a
note halfway down this page (or halfway up) about problems with computers and
calculators.

http://www.purplemath.com/modules/exponent5.htm

At school i was told-off for writing a 9 that looked like a 7. I tried to
explain that it was a 7 but that further annoyed the teacher who demanded that i
explain why it looked like a 9. There is just no arguing with some people.

I think that compatibility with Excel is important and i am not sure if we
should follow their way or the Internationally agreed standards as taught in
primary school (except to business people).
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Nino,

Nino Novak schrieb:

Hi Regina,

I'm looking for a place to collect little tips and explanations

If you want a wiki, I see only the TDF Wiki and libreofficewiki.de in
place at the moment.

The TDF Wiki you can use right away, but AFAIK there is no Documentation
section yet (I mean where knowledge bits are created in the wiki
itself), it just serves as project whiteboard and as document repository
for the User Guides.

There is a "document" section, but it contains only the guides.

Did you ask Martin if libreofficewiki.de can be tweaked to become
multilingual (and if he is willing to do/host it)? That would be the
quickest solution in my eyes as the German structure could be
transferred to the english instance by just translating the items. I
know that MoinMoin (the wiki engine used) can be set up as mulitilingual
wiki farm but it needs further investigation to see if/how it supports
the concrete needs of this community.

I have contacted Martin. He told me that the UI is already in English too and the UI-language is determined by browser or personal preference settings.

He will think about further details and contact the owner of the wiki.

Kind regards
Regina

Jean, I know - but in my eyes there are two reasons for prefering
libreofficewiki over tdf wiki for such purposes at the moment: first,
I'd generally prefer to expand/improve an existing knowledge base
instead of creating a new one.

Second, a wiki dedicated exclusively to serve as end user knowledge base
has - at least for me - some usability advantages over a mixed wiki
serving half for project needs.

So that's my actual opinion, but certainly everybody has the freedom to
prove me wrong and start a new knowledge base in the tdf wiki :wink:

Nino

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about the LibO wiki, and when I replied I was referring to the LibO wiki. I agree that the docs info and knowledge base should be on the LibO wiki, not the TDF wiki. In fact, I don't think I knew there was an TDF wiki.

Jean

Ok, so probably we have to agree upon nicknaming the different wikis:

(A) By "TDF Wiki" I thought of http://wiki.documentfoundation.org . This
wiki serves - according to its main page - many needs simultaneously[1,
see below], but at present in my eyes mainly for project coordination.

(B) By "libreofficewiki" I thought of http://www.libreofficewiki.de,
which is just an alias for the old http://www.ooowiki.de - a very good
source of specific information bits and Howtos about OpenOffice.org (but
only in German language).

(C) I don't know of other public dedicated wikis at present. However,
there are libreoffice wiki sections in e.g. the German Ubuntu Wiki [2]
and probably other, non-LibO Wikis of course.

(D) Finally, to complete the list, the wiki on
http://help.libreoffice.org is not a public (i.e. community writable)
wiki at the moment, it is just the wikified content of the online help
from the LibO software. But it is sometimes referred to as LibO Wiki as
well.

So what I've suggested to do is setting up libreofficewiki.de (see B) as
multilanguage version and translate the contents (I'd suggest starting
with English and then followed by other languages)

Out of usability reasons I'd not suggest to put such little bits of end
user information into the TDF wiki (A). At least not at present.

In times of OOo, the argumentation for using the wiki was different:
They suggested to put as much as possible information into the OOo Wiki
(here I mean: wiki.services.ooo..., not ooowiki.de) to make it the
biggest and best possible all-purpose knowledge base. Which is a good
argument, of course, but the problem is that for not-so-advanced users
there is too much information so the average user does get too much
search results and does not know where to start. All-in-one is only good
for advanced people, and if it can be filtered efficiently (e.g. show
results in one or a desired set of languages only).

Nino

[1] "This wiki is currently work in progress and will subsequently
provide information on our ideas, projects, visions, goals and products,
and everyone can contribute."
[2] http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/LibreOffice

one small correction:

(B) By "libreofficewiki" I thought of http://www.libreofficewiki.de,
which is just an alias for the old http://www.ooowiki.de - a very
good source of specific information bits and Howtos about
OpenOffice.org (but only in German language).

...about OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice of course.

N.

Over the past three years have been writing a documentation specifically
aimed at students (and authors in general) in German.

It is available at:

http://www.fb4.fh-frankfurt.de/tips/openoffice/dokumentation/ooo_fuer_studenten.pdf

The documentation reflects criticisms and suggestions made by my students -
240 per semester participate in my 3 hour introductory course - and their
concrete needs when it comes to formatting longer texts such as research
papers etc.

I was thinking of adapting it to LibreOffice and also translating it into
English.

In my view, there are loads of introductions to various aspects of the
program and also very good systematic introductions written from a technical
point of view. But I haven't yet come across one written specifically for
students and limiting itself to their specific needs. Students don't have
the patience, the time or indeed the need to learn about all aspects of the
program, they just want to produce nicely looking documents in as short a
time and with the least effort possible.

My question: where can I publish my introduction? Have been looking around,
but can't find anything on the web.

Best
Dave

Hallo David,

David Paenson schrieb:

Over the past three years have been writing a documentation specifically
aimed at students (and authors in general) in German.

It is available at:

http://www.fb4.fh-frankfurt.de/tips/openoffice/dokumentation/ooo_fuer_studenten.pdf

The documentation reflects criticisms and suggestions made by my students -
240 per semester participate in my 3 hour introductory course - and their
concrete needs when it comes to formatting longer texts such as research
papers etc.

I was thinking of adapting it to LibreOffice and also translating it into
English.

In my view, there are loads of introductions to various aspects of the
program and also very good systematic introductions written from a technical
point of view. But I haven't yet come across one written specifically for
students and limiting itself to their specific needs. Students don't have
the patience, the time or indeed the need to learn about all aspects of the
program, they just want to produce nicely looking documents in as short a
time and with the least effort possible.

My question: where can I publish my introduction? Have been looking around,
but can't find anything on the web.

For The German version I think, you can upload it to http://www.libreofficewiki.de and add a chapter in
http://www.libreofficewiki.de/StrukturierteDokumente and links it there.

A link to the download from the above mentioned www.fb4.fh-frankfurt.de/... is already placed on http://de.libreoffice.org/hilfe-listen/probleme-2/.

Kind regards
Regina

Thanks Regina,

Just installed LO 3.4 and discovered an enormous bug: in editing modus, i.e.
when correcting someone else's text, so he/she sees the results, deleted
text simply disappears instead of just being overwritten with dashes. So now
I've gone back to OpenOffice 3.2.

Yours
Dave

What I see is a strikethrough but with no text. And rejection of the deletion leaves it blank than what the original text was. (It also appears that showing changes is off by default in 3.4.0 but recording changes is on.)

It is (relatively) safe to use LibreOffice 3.3.2. The bug seems to be new in 3.4.0. I haven't checked this with 3.3.3rc1.

- Dennis

PS: In making a sample file to demonstrate this defect, I notice that the deletion shows as text with a strikethrough at first. It is when I do anything else that it suddenly changes to just strikethroughs without the text. I think this is a bug I've seen before but made worse in some way. The bug is that the subsequent re-rendering of a deletion actually changes it something else in a way that the original deleted material cannot be recovered by rejecting the deletion. That gives me some ideas of some test files that isolate this, though I am not equipped to actually fix the code.

PPS: I sternly object to 3.4.0 not being a stable release and meant to be treated the same as a beta. This was a terrible move, especially since it was widely-announced as availability of 3.4 without qualifications. It should have remained at least 3.4.0rc2 until there was time to discover what regressions and show-stoppers had arisen. The need for a 3.4 release celebration was not justifiable under any circumstances. This regression business is very discouraging.)

This is also my co-workers. So I have been collecting short instructions for them. In their case even shorter than your summary. I think the organisation of the information is important. I think of layers, the very simple common things on top because no one wants to look for these and more and more detail as you dig deeper. A wiki is well structured for this.
steve