German Base-Handbuch 4.1 ready

This is good news!

Do you want me to publish the German book on Lulu?

--Jean

Hi Jean,

next release of the German Base-Handbuch has been uploaded to
http://de.libreoffice.org/hilfe-kontakt/handbuecher/

Version 4.1 shows the new functions in the Query-Editor and gives a hint
about changes in the listfields of forms and using this changes with macros.

Many content has been added. Base Handbuch 3.5 had 303 pages, 4.0 had
349 pages and 4.1 has 385 pages.

I will have a look which content could be good for the English version
of the handbook.

Regards

Robert

This is good news!

Do you want me to publish the German book on Lulu?

--Jean

Would be great, if you will do it.

Regards

Robert

Hello *,

next release of the German Base-Handbuch has been uploaded to
http://de.libreoffice.org/hilfe-kontakt/handbuecher/

Version 4.1 shows the new functions in the Query-Editor and gives a hint
about changes in the listfields of forms and using this changes with macros.

Many content has been added. Base Handbuch 3.5 had 303 pages, 4.0 had
349 pages and 4.1 has 385 pages.

I will have a look which content could be good for the English version
of the handbook.

I have put the lists of content of the three versions of Base-Handbuch
in a Calc-document. It's all in German, but shows a little bit, where we
have changed and added content.

You can download this document here:
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/Vergleich_Base_Handbuecher.ods

There are also changes in the chapters. But it can't be written down in
some sentences here.

Regards

Robert

Hi :slight_smile:
I just wanted to forwards this email to you from Ruth.  People often say good things about the documentation you produce but i don't always pass the well-earned praise on.  I thought i would this time :slight_smile:
Congrats and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Tom,

Comments like the one quoted below do not help LO at all. How is it
"difficult" to join the Docs team? Is it "difficult" to sign up to the
wiki and to ODFAuthors? A little extra work, perhaps, but no more so
than joining any other team at LO (such as Marketing or QA) and IMO a
lot less difficult than reporting bugs. Also, your comment "it means
signing up to a couple of 3rd party independent sites" is factually
incorrect. There is only one: ODFAuthors, and even that is not a
requirement. We can accommodate people who do not wish to edit the
source files.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Good to see such a positive message again.  That's a good one for letting people know how relaxed and friendly this list is.  Nice work there!  Is this slap carefully timed to try to catch new people as they join they to discourage them from daring to comment?  People used to chatter happily on this list about all sorts of things, such as usage of certain words, etymology and ways of trying to get different documents to be consistent with each other.  Now people seem scared to say anything.  Is this atmosphere encouraging people to join in?

Trying to pretend that this list is easy to join really doesn't prepare for the reality.  We have had people waiting over a week at times in the past and feeling so frustrated with it that they walked off wondering if it was personal or something.  Some have even seen other people given logins while they still hadn't been given one.

From the results i got by suggesting that it's not so easy to join in i think it might be better to pretend it's really tough as i got more responses this time with that approach.  Sometimes people prefer something exclusive rather than something too open

If it really is so easy to join in then why don't more people do so? 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Personally, I love this string. I tried to sign up to help with the documentation for Base since that is where my interest lies. I got as far as joining this mail list. My experience is more in line with Tom's description. I would really appreciate someone volunteering to "hold my hand" as I take a second shot at joining the documentation team. Anyone want to step up??? :wink:

I'm travelling and will be offline for about 24 hours, nor can I check right now to see if you have an ODFAuthors account. When I get home I should stay there for a few months (unusual for me), so I may be have time for some hand-holding.

Let's start by finding out what you might like to do, and what if any experience you have with producing user docs, whether book length or shorter (how-tos, tutorials, examples, FAQs, tips & hints). Do you prefer to work in ODT format or wiki format or what? So far most of our user docs are in ODT/PDF but there is no reason why everything needs to be in that form.

Give me some feedback on those topics and we'll take it from there.

--Jean

Mark,
It is not very hard to join, I just signed up the other day.
Join the documentation chat list from https://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/documenters/

When you feel confident about contributing, create an account on the documentation development site https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications
I had to look at the Facebook page to answer some of the security questions they asked to create the account.
HTH
Ruth Ann Stewart, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Hi Jean, Mark,

I just checked and Mark didn't have an ODFAuthors account. So I went ahead
and created one.
Mark, you should have received an email with a link to set your password.
Please log in and
change the password to something you can easily remember.

If you have any questions about how to work with ODFAuthors, please ask on
this list here, there
are always people able to help, even if the administrators aren't online
all the time. :wink:

Welcome to the team!

Sigrid

Hey Jean,

I'm used to using LO so ODF would work for me.

I've written documentation for programs that I've written. I've been writing test scripts quite a lot recently. Are there test scripts for LO Base? Maybe that might be a good use of my time.

I'm no C programmer so I don't think I've got a lot to offer with coding. I'm assuming that LO Base is primarily written in C.

I have a son who speaks German so maybe I can ask him to help me translate the German Base documentation into English.

I've got an account on ODFAuthors. I wasn't able to make much of any sense of what I found there.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply. I hope I can be of some use to the project.

Thank you Sigrid. I followed the link and entered a password. Now if I could just figure out how to, "Please choose the project you want to contribute to, and then choose your language." I've looked at most of the links on the site, including the tabs, but all I find is a bunch of happy talk and comments like the one quoted above, but I don't see a way to chose anything except which printed book I want to buy.

I guess my question is, just how do I choose the project? I already know that I want to work on Base documentation.

The project is LibreOffice. (ODFAuthors is also available to Apache OpenOffice, although that project does not use our site at this time.) There should be a link on the left hand sidebar. Click that and some languages should appear in a submenu in that sidebar. Click English to display another submenu with the names of user guides.

--Jean

Thank you so much for holding my hand Y'all. I found the location where the Base documents are kept. Now, what do I do with the documents that are stored there? Is there a team leader/contact person who knows what needs doing and where to get the information from?

I am the docs team leader, but Dan Lewis has been doing most of the work on the Base Guide, which is one of the docs on Base.

I will write in detail tomorrow about what needs doing and where to find files and other info. (I just got home from a month away and a 36-hour day of travel, and I am going to fall asleep any minute.)

Welcome to the team!

-- Jean

Hello Mark,

I 'm the person, who had written most of the German Base-Handbuch.

I've written documentation for programs that I've written. I've been
writing test scripts quite a lot recently. Are there test scripts for
LO Base? Maybe that might be a good use of my time.

What Do you mean with "test scripts"? Could it be you are looking for
example-databases? There are some databases already translated to
english, but some other examples aren't. The examples of the
Base-Handbuch 4.1 you will find here together with the chapters of the
whole Base-Handbuch.

I'm no C programmer so I don't think I've got a lot to offer with
coding. I'm assuming that LO Base is primarily written in C.

I have a son who speaks German so maybe I can ask him to help me
translate the German Base documentation into English.

Don't know where the English chapters of the old Handbook could be
downloaded. ODF-Autors, I think. The english version is made with of the
German Base-Handbuch 3.5. Only the chapter for the reports is from
version 4.0. I have seen, there is a version 4.0 - but it seems to be
the same.

I have created a Calc-document, which shows the difference between the
versions (only the chapters, which had been added) and, marked by
comments, the chapter, where you could find the new functions of Base in
version 4.1. This new functions are a "must be" for a book for version 4.1.

This document, together with the whole LO 4.1-Handuch, you can find here:
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/
The docoment, which show the difference, is
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/Vergleich_Base_Handbuecher.ods

All these documents are written in German. But when I would try to
translate it could be I don't find the right words for the content. My
favorite website with a whole traffic when reporting bugs is
http://www.dict.cc/
So could be better that someone will translate, who speaks English very
well.

Regards

Robert

Well, I'm still around, but I'd feel happier going over someone else's translation for English style than doing it myself again.
Hazel

Hey Robert,

When we develop a new piece of software we also write a test script that fully describes all the steps that a user should take and the results expected. For example:

Step 1:
Action: Click the [File] button.
Result: File dialog box opens. List of files appears in the scroll box.
Pass: Fail: Comment:

Step 2:
Action: Click the [Up Level] button.
Result: File scroll box moves up one level in the file system.
Pass: Fail: Comment:

This provides a fully documented functional description of the software and verification that the software functions as advertised. Nothing goes to production until it has a clean test script.

Writing test scripts, and later documentation, is onerous work that most developers prefer to avoid. Writing code is way more fun.

The result is that we end up with lots of undocumented software. It has functions that are accessible with the right combination of inputs, just like a video game, but you have to poke around and experiment to discover what it does. Undocumented software is just a video game.

The Docs Team does user docs, not developer docs or testing/QA docs like test scripts, though of course the program needs all types. You might like to contact the developers and/or the QA team to see what they have and/or what else they might want to have. I know they can always use more help (just as all of the teams can use more help).

Later today I will get on my computer and give you more info about the user docs for Base.

--Jean

Regarding the Base Handbook (translated from German).

Hello Mark,

I 'm the person, who had written most of the German Base-Handbuch.

Don't know where the English chapters of the old Handbook could be
downloaded. ODF-Autors, I think. The english version is made with of the
German Base-Handbuch 3.5. Only the chapter for the reports is from
version 4.0. I have seen, there is a version 4.0 - but it seems to be
the same.

Yes, the English Base Handbook v4.0 is identical to the v3.5-3.6
Handbook; due to lack of time, we did not translate the changes made
in the German version.

The source ODT files for the English version are here:
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/base-handbook/published

Thank you, Robert, for the links below to the v4.1 German files and
your spreadsheet of changes.

I have created a Calc-document, which shows the difference between the
versions (only the chapters, which had been added) and, marked by
comments, the chapter, where you could find the new functions of Base in
version 4.1. This new functions are a "must be" for a book for version 4.1.

This document, together with the whole LO 4.1-Handuch, you can find here:
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/
The docoment, which show the difference, is
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/Vergleich_Base_Handbuecher.ods

All these documents are written in German. But when I would try to
translate it could be I don't find the right words for the content....
So could be better that someone will translate, who speaks English very
well.

Whoever does the translating can decide whether to with the existing
English translation and update it with the v4.1 changes, or start from
the German 4.1 and do a complete new translation. This decision might
vary depending on the chapter; some may have more changes than others.
I have not yet had time to look at Robert's spreadsheet.

In addition to translating, we might want to rewrite some material
(such as examples) to suit English-speaking audiences better. This was
done in a few places in the v3.5 handbook.

IMO the goal should be to get a usable document done as quickly as
possible and then amend it later if we want to. That's what we did
with the v3.5 book. A more long-term goal is to combine the handbook
material with work being done on the Base Guide. I will write more
about the Base Guide in a separate note.

BTW, we have a system for tracking who is doing what on each book, but
unfortunately not everyone keeps it up to date. (I am as guilty of
this as anyone; I get busy and forget.) It's on this page:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development/UserGuideTasks

--Jean

--Jean