Docs wiki

Hi team,
I was poking around the Docs section of the wiki looking up info and
following links, and I discovered there’s still a lot of out-of-date info
on pages linked to up-to-date pages. No wonder newcomers often get
confused. I don’t know how much energy I have for tracking down and fixing
problems, and I know that others have been doing the same, but there is so
much of it.

Jean

Hi All,

Indeed, it is confusing...
How to apply the latest template to an Revised Chapter? Should I use the the Extension "Template Changer" or create a new document with the latest chapter template and copy all info from old document to the new one?

On the Wiki or in the Contributor ODT files this info could not be found.

One other thing that bothers me is the inconsequence usage of screenshots... today I can see in one chapter that screenshots are produced by several users using several different OS.

Is it possible that when the development or revision of a book starts it is decided which OS is used to produce the screenshots? It gives a more professional and consistent look.

/Rob

Hello Rob

I find that creating a new document from the template is accurate using copy and paste as it gives good control on what happens.
I have not used the extension Template Change and did not know that there was one. However, I will run a test to see which is better.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com

Hi Peter,

I've found the extention in the "Contributor Resources > Other Resources" Folder on NextCloud. So I assumed this was used to apply the new chapter template.

/Rob

Hello Rob

The Template Changer extension appears to be working OK in Windows and Ubuntu. However in macOS 11 Big Sur, the extension does not install in LO and definitely does not work. So for macOS, it is copy and paste.

Regards
Peter Schofield
psauthor@gmail.com

Hi Rob,

I am in the middle of preparing a detailed answer to your original post
and I will post shortly.

Regards
Dave

Hi Rob,

I mentioned to you previously that the contributor guide documentation
is in a state of flux and what you currently read there should not be taken
as absolute fact.

At the docs team meeting on Oct 31st 2018 it was agreed that in future
screen captures for the guides would be taken from Windows 10. In fact I
offered to make the screen captures for any contributor who either
didn't have Windows 10, or wasn't able to make them. Unfortunately, this
was never adhered to and we continue to have an inconsistent variety of
captures. Maybe this would be the time to reach team consensus on this
issue and document it in the contributors guide.

For an number of different reasons the "Template Changer" extension has
pretty much been abandoned/ignored. Mainly because it is no longer being
developed/supported. While the extension still works perfectly for me,
others have reported that they have issues, possibly related to their
choice, There are 2 methods for applying a template to an existing document:
1. See "Associating a document with a different template" page 224 of
the 6.4 Writer Guide.
2. See "Creating and modifying styles" page 182 of the 6.4 Writer Guide.
The second option allows you to choose between a template stored in your
local templates, or from a file in a different location.
If you don't already have a copy of the 6.4 Writer Guide, download from:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/images/a/a4/WG64-WriterGuide.pdf

Regards
Dave

Original sentence: "While the extension still works perfectly for me,
others have reported that they have issues, possibly related to their
choice,"

Should have read: "While the extension still works perfectly for me,
others have reported that they have issues, possibly related to their
choice _of_ _operating_ _system_,"

Dave

Comments inline below.

Hi All,

Indeed, it is confusing...
How to apply the latest template to an Revised Chapter? Should I use the
the Extension "Template Changer" or create a new document with the
latest chapter template and copy all info from old document to the new one?

The Template Changer extension updates the style definitions, but it does
not apply the changes the title page and copyright page. Therefore I
recommend starting a new doc from the template and copying in the old doc.
But please do the info on the title & copyright pages manually - don’t just
copy those pages completely. Several things have changed, some of which may
not be immediately obvious.

On the Wiki or in the Contributor ODT files this info could not be found.

One other thing that bothers me is the inconsequence usage of
screenshots... today I can see in one chapter that screenshots are
produced by several users using several different OS.

Is it possible that when the development or revision of a book starts it
is decided which OS is used to produce the screenshots? It gives a more
professional and consistent look.

That usually slows down the updating of a book like Getting Started a lot,
because chapters are updated by different people and someone would need to
go through all the chapters to make the figures consistent from one o/s,
and then they all need to be reviewed. IMO it’s a very good nice-to-have,
but often not practical.

This is an addition to the remarks of Jean, here concerning Python.

Hi team,
I was poking around the Docs section of the wiki looking up info and
following links, and I discovered there’s still a lot of out-of-date info
on pages linked to up-to-date pages. No wonder newcomers often get
confused. I don’t know how much energy I have for tracking down and fixing
problems, and I know that others have been doing the same, but there is so
much of it.

Jean

1) from https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros > programmers guide > useful functions>
you land on https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros/Python_Guide/Useful_functions

it contains some code, also the msgbox function. This page does not have a link to the next landing

2) from https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros > programmers guide > working with documents > you land on https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros/Python_Guide/Documents

much more code snippets, in the middle with a remark referencing the previous page

3) https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros/Python_Guide/Documents#Open
same contents as previous page, don't know how i landed there

4) In the menu bar of mentioned pages, there are entries for writer - calc and so on, clicking on these will bring you to
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros/writer
showing how to manipulate libreoffice objects in various languages side by side. Objects different from all the previous pages

5) an entry in the same menu bar is labelled as Basic/Python which brings you to
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros/Basic_Primitives
loads of basic code (interesting for https://gitlab.com/LibreOfficiant/scriptforge/-/tree/scriptforge-7-1/Help)?, no python (intention failed?). Anyhow, the menu title suggests otherwise

I have the feeling that information, for python, is scattered over the website. In general I should say a webpage starts with a wide focus, and upon navigating the focus is narrowed by descriptive links.
Of course you can navigate trough different ways to end on the same page. But now there are concurrent ways that never meet and lead to different pages with different content

? who does the webpage content and navigation, most of the mails here seem to  be dealing with the information in nextcloud.

peter heijink

Hi Peter

The wiki Macros page is inspired from the french wiki Macros page
<https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Macros/fr> . Please note it is
incomplete. Observe other language pages are less dense.

Everybody can improve wiki pages content and organosation. All improvements
to their structure are welcome.