Anyone working on 3.4.x updates?

Is anyone working on 3.4.x updates for any of the chapters in any of
the books? I don't see anything checked out.

I know it's a long weekend in the USA, and it's probably still summer
holidays in much of Europe, so perhaps that's the reason? Or perhaps
you're doing more research before checking a chapter out to work on
it?

Remember, I put on this page a list of items and where I think they need to go:
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development

If you'd prefer to do something more interesting to you than updating
chapters, that's fine. Everyone's a volunteer, and welcome to do what
they want. But if I'm the only person who ever does updates when the
software changes... this group is in trouble. And the docs aren't as
good as they could be.

My thanks, BTW, to John Smith for his review comments on the Writer
Guide, which will be incorporated into the update. I've also got some
comments from Hazel Russman on the OOo books that apply to the LO
books as well and will need to be addressed.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
All the lists seem quiet this week. There is an event in Munich and another due
soon in Paris. In England it's a bank holiday weekend so a lot of people have
gone off on hols. Also it's one of the last weeks before school starts again so
there is a lot of panicking to take advantage and prepare for it. The heat here
is still unbearable.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Jean,

As you know, I'm working on Alfresco and am not currently working on
documentation. When done with the work on Alfresco, I'll be starting
that work on a power user's guide, unless you feel that it would be
more productive to work on updates with you, but it's unlikely to be
for a few weeks yet...

Jean
I am working through Pivot Tables (Previously DataPilot) from Ch 8 of the
Calc Guide at present.
There will be quite some confusion as not all the strings have been
changed from DP to PT - for example the first layout screen still says
DataPilot while all the help screns have Pivot Tables.
regards from no long weekend, no summer holidays, wet and raining CH
Martin

Hi Jean,

As you know, I'm working on Alfresco and am not currently working on
documentation. When done with the work on Alfresco, I'll be starting
that work on a power user's guide, unless you feel that it would be
more productive to work on updates with you, but it's unlikely to be
for a few weeks yet...

Hi David,
I think you've got your priorities right. Don't forget the "how to use
the LO Alfresco site" guide. We're all eagerly awaiting that one. :slight_smile:

--Jean

Hi Martin,
Glad to hear you're on the job; wasn't sure if your other work/life
was interfering.
Oh joy (not!) regarding the DP/PT confusion... I hope that gets sorted
in the next bugfix release, due in (I think) October.

--Jean

Yes, took on a "rescue dog" a few weeks ago, an 8 year old standard poodle
I named Doctor Who.
Bit of a handful, trying to catch up the missing 8 years of training in a
few weeks. But we are ok :=)

After I finish the PT/DP I will go across to the Draw chapters.

Slightly OT but perhaps relevant:

With my Windows hat on, I am programming an MS Access VBA application at
present, relatively complicated with table linking, multi
user across a network, containing various input forms/subforms, many
different reports with forms for input of parameters for the queries, and
so on. You get the idea.

I have both printed and pdf versions of major books about Access and VBA
(1000 pages plus in some cases) from Que, O'Reilly etc.

The point is, that at a certain point, the questions I have are not
answered in these books. I find the answers on forums and other web based
resources via Google. Some blogs and wikis are useful also.

A second point is the speed of access. It is (usually) slower to
search a book (one pdf at a time) than to use Google. Of course with a text
search facility like Recoll (Linux) or Sleuthhound (Windows) searching
becomes more efficient, but still limited to what you have on
your hard drive/local server(s). And this does not address the
online/offline questions, nor problems encountered by those with slow
internet access speeds.

But my point is, we have all this really good _basic_ information contained
in the Guides.

What about the power users? Who addresses their needs? Do we
need some sort of cookbook of ideas/FAQs or whatever in a Wiki format?
Harvested from user forums etc? I remember some years ago we had or were
looking at a system of harvesting ideas - I think Jonathan was across it
IIRC?? The sheer number of posts and checking if proposed solutions are
still applicable would be horrendous to perform manually I suppose. This
does not attempt to propose a solution, just stimulate some ideas.

Interesting that Ubuntu have also recognised the need to cater for both
"newbies" and power users with the release of 11.04 - perceived by many
power users (Linus T included) as a dumbing down of the system.

just a few cents worth of thoughts this morning
regards
M

Hi,

...

> There will be quite some confusion as not all the strings have been
> changed from DP to PT - for example the first layout screen still
> says DataPilot while all the help screns have Pivot Tables.

...

Oh joy (not!) regarding the DP/PT confusion... I hope that gets
sorted in the next bugfix release, due in (I think) October.

see https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39744

My interpretation/suggestion:
- seems to be fixed in master
- but don't know if backported to 3.4.x
- should be carefully/repeatedly tested in master at least (Martin?)

Nino

Hi :slight_smile:
I'm guessing you have already had one called K9? It's a shame Base is not quite
up to the level of the challenge you face with Access.

There has been some discussion about a power-users guide in here about a month
ago. It stalled when a few of us argued that the macro chapters that are
already in the guides should stay there even tho it edges into the realms of
power-users. There is no reason why such chapters couldn't be in more than one
guide tho.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I have been saying for years that we need *something* for power users.
What that something should be, and how best to provide it, I don't
know. The main problem we've had is a lack of people with both the
knowledge and the time to produce or collect material. David is
planning to work on some of this, and I keep intending to do some work
on topics of particular interest to me, but I keep getting
side-tracked and never getting around to it.

Jonathon Coombes had/has a website that was harvesting questions and
answers, but the last time I looked it had filled up with spam.

There has been some talk on the ApacheOOo list about using
stackoverflow. There are a lot of questions and answers there about
OOo, mainly from programmers/macro writers/other power users, which
are probably relevant to LO too.

I would like to see more collaboration between AOOo and LO on user
support (in whatever forms), but I lack the time or energy to work
towards that goal myself.

--Jean

The macros info in the existing guides is aimed quite properly at beginners.

Macros, while an important topic for a power users guide, are not the
main topic IMO.

The power users guide did not stall over macros; David is planning to
work on it (or some of it), and no one else seems to be available at
this time to work on any of it.

--Jean

Also, with Andrew Pitonyak working on an update to his "Macros
Explained" book, putting a lot of effort into advanced macros info in
another form seems to be misplaced effort -- unless of course there is
someone who has the knowledge and time to do it. What would be good
IMO is some specific usage examples for particular target audiences.
But again, there's no one to do it.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Oops, "stalled" was the wrong word, "side-tracked" might have been better
although it was into something with a higher priority. Anyway the point was
that a few people liked the idea and if there is time to work on it then other
people here might join in.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi :slight_smile:
+1
People seem to really like the intro to Macros in the GS and the extra chapter
in the Calc guide and Andrew's book if they need something more advanced so that
covers the area of macros neatly.

Regina, Barbara, Sigrid and other people often seem to post some very advanced
answers in the Users List so i would guess there is a call for other topics to
be in a power-users guide.

There is a wish-list of documentation that people would like to see
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Production
"intermediate and advanced" is near the bottom of the list. It's not sorted in
priority order. People just add to the top or bottom (or middle) fairly
randomly i think.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Tom
Thanks for the comment and continuing what appears to be a useful line of
thought.

No, the others (belonging to my better half) have Swiss names.

It would be great to think that at some stage I could challenge myself
with Base to the same extent, but I fear I will be pensioned before that
can happen. I hope/trust I am proved totally wrong.

Hi Nino
I installed the day build of LOdev (master 000350m1 from 5.9) and first
glance seems that the DataPilot refs I looked for have been changed to
Pivot Tables - more later.
regards
Martin