LibreOffice 3.6 is approaching quickly!

This article is a nice summary:
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/LibreOffice-3-6-0-enters-beta-testing-1616858.html

It contains links to relevant LO wiki pages including:
* the release plan,
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleasePlan/3.6#3.6.0_release
* the preliminary Release Notes,
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.6

Note that release is scheduled for late July - early August. We need
to finish the v3.4 Calc Guide and all the v3.5 books, as well as work
on v3.6.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Is the 3.6.x usable enough to completely skip all the remaining 3.5.x guides and go straight to the 3.6.x guides instead?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Don't know whether 3.6 is usable enough for us to start documenting
it, but it should be. It's in early beta at the moment. I haven't
tested it nor even read through the list of updates yet.

Skipping 3.5.x guides: I'll look at the features lists for 3.5 and 3.6
and form an opinion today or tomorrow. Skipping a release has both
advantages and disadvantages, so the pros and cons need to be weighed
up. Sometimes incremental updating works best; sometimes it's not
needed. (Others' informed opinions are welcome, of course.)

--Jean

My dos centavos...

Due to the very small number of writers available, LO should always rewrite its current material at the beta version level, at least. Better yet, write for the pre-release alpha stage and update the chapters accordingly, as needed.

Otherwise, when the LO docs project attempts to complete an incremental edition, it will likely keep remaining an incremental version or three behind--and possibly contain deprecated or even worse, obsolete, material in addition to being untimely.

Gary

I forgot to add...

The writings should be done much like the technical editing and rewriting we performed for Motorla/Freescale Semiconductor: using conditional text for the various material that differs. After a reasonable amount of time, the obsolete or deprecated material can be permanently deleted.

Gary

Gary

I have now studied the features lists for v3.5
(http://www.libreoffice.org/download/3-5-new-features-and-fixes/) and
v3.6 (http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/3.6).

Numerous important changes were made in v3.5 to Writer and Draw as
well as Impress. Few new or updated features are listed for Draw and
Impress v3.6.

Updating the Draw Guide to 3.5 should not be a major job for PeterS,
because of the overlap between Draw and Impress. He has already agreed
to do it. Producing a v3.6 book for Draw or Impress should require
very little further work.

Updating the affected chapters of the Writer Guide to v3.5 will be a
fair bit of work for whoever does it (JohnS?), but then the update to
v3.6 should be relatively minor.

Calc appears to have numerous important changes in v3.5 and in v3.6,
so perhaps a case can be made for skipping a Calc Guide for v3.5 and
going directly to v3.6... assuming anyone is available to work on it,
given everything else that needs to be done.

IMO, we should have a Getting Started guide for v3.5 and another for
v3.6. But again, that assumes someone is available to work on it. I
traditionally do that book, other than the chapters extracted from
work others do for other books (Writer, Impress, Draw, Calc).

So, to summarise:
I think we should NOT skip the v3.5 books (other than, perhaps, Calc),
because of the major changes in v3.5. However, if individual
volunteers prefer to go directly to v3.6 for whatever they are working
on, I won't argue.

BTW, I intend to work on the remaining chapters of Calc v3.4 over the
next few days, so we can finish that book as soon as Andrew Pitonyak
does his chapters.

After that, I intend to work on Getting Started v3.5.

--Jean

Gary, you know perfectly well that very few volunteers are able to
cope with conditional text or any of the other professional methods of
maintaining documentation. Otherwise, I would agree.

As for working with beta software, this is also a problem for many
volunteers. We've seen that over and over again at OOo and here.
However, I'm far more willing to tackle that problem. Of course, some
of our regular contributors have no problem with using upcoming
releases, so that's not a showstopper.

See my other note about my conclusions from studying the features
lists for v3.5 and v3.6.

--Jean

Hello Jean

Back from a wonderful holiday in Croatia. Definitely worth visiting again and we are already making tentative plans for next year. Now it is back to work.

If you can point me in the right direction to get a reasonably stable version of LO3.6, I can continue with Draw guide LO3.5. Then check LO3.5 guide against LO3.6 after completing each chapter. Make any necessary alterations and we shall be a little ahead when it is a go for publishing LO3.6 guides.

Regards

Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com

Peter! Glad to hear you had a good holiday. I haven't been in Croatia
in 45 (!) years, back when it was part of Yugoslavia. I enjoyed it
then and have been looking for an opportunity to go back.

Here is the page for downloading the Beta 1 of LO3.6:
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/pre-releases/

That page also has a link to the nightly builds, if you feel really daring.

Glad to know you'll be doing Draw 3.5 as well as 3.6.

--Jean

Hi Jean,

Just downloaded and installed on my Mac. If they do not change any of the icons before release many of the Calc guide screen shots will need redoing as they have changed many of them and some of the menu items.

How to catch up with the guides with the limited number of people is going to be a problem.

What time I'll have to help with the Calc guide remains an unknown given the change of government!

I was hoping to have already to have started on the LO3.5 Calc guides. May be the same plan as Peter mentioned below might be the best plan

Regards

Ian Leyton

Hi :slight_smile:
I think one of the problems with the 3.5.x branch was that so many things didn't work that it was difficult to get screen-shots or accurately update the text of the guides.

We don't really know whether there will be more changes to the icon sets at official release.  Is anyone on the design teams list to ask there?  It might be worth asking the devs list too as they might have some idea of plans. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi :slight_smile:
I think it would be more impressive if people mostly skipped the 3.5.x and went straight on to the 3.6.x as happened with the Impress Guide this time.  Maybe by the time the 3.6.x guides are done the need for 3.5.x guides would be over anyway.  There are not many releases left before 3.5.x reaches end-of-life.

Yes, there might have been big changes but if no-one is using the 3.5.x by the time the guides are done then there will have been no point in doing the guides.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Ian,
Be sure you are using the Galaxy icon set in LibreOffice (LODev >
Preferences > LOdev > View > Icon size and style). When I installed
LO3.6 beta on my Mac, it came up with the Automatic (Tango) icon set.
Many Tango icons look different, but a quick flip through some Calc
screens suggests that the Galaxy icon set is mostly unchanged... or
the changes are minor enough that new screenshots are not required for
that reason alone (and may look somewhat different on other platforms
anyway).

--Jean

OK Tom, you've given your opinion. Let those of us actually doing the
work decide what we prefer to do.

Cheers, Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
+1
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

For those who might be unaware of the use of conditional text...

Using conditional text is not as complicated as you are making it seem. Reviewers or re(writers) could work as before with their writings or reviews.

Afterward, a maintenance editor (a type of technical editor who updates docs) could then incorporate the conditional text into a master chapter document, as needed. As a result, any desired incremental version could be generated, utilizing the appropriate conditional field for the particular version. And the final port of a particular version's chapter is (typically) cleared of its conditional text for the master document used for book building, assuming that a book or PDF is the desired output.

All of that could be made transparent to those writers, editors, or reviewers with less experience. There were times in the past (mostly for version 2.x, when there were a bit more volunteers at times than currently) when OO had maintenance editors assigned to chapters, thus aiding in updating those chapters of the Writer Guide.

Of course, the problem in that regard is a current lack of maintenance editors--something that could be corrected with an aggressive recruitment of volunteers (no easy task). Another benefit would be keeping the modularity involved when a guide is broken up into chapters along with their attendant maintaining editors--much like it was a few years ago.

One problem was LO/OO reinventing the wheel over and over again when redoing a complete incremental edition with mostly unaltered material, thus resulting in some delays in getting out a complete increment guide for whatever component being developed. But the real delay at LO is not getting an appropriate leg-up with new material while not starting the updating until way past the time the incremental version is already in its general, stable release.

Gary

Gary:

I don't disagree with what you've said here, BUT...

I'll take your suggestions on how we can or should be doing things a
lot more seriously when you start doing some actual work around here
instead of just pontificating on how it should be done. And not just
the nitpicking you used to do at OOo and early on here at LO: some
actual productive work.

--Jean