> @ Or do we a create a brand new template, ignoring the existing
> OOoAuthors template;
>
>
I haven't been involved all that much, but I would suggest totally
rebranding the documentation. Personally, I never much cared for the layout
and looks of the OOo guides--I always thought they looked a bit "old" if
that makes any sense.
True, but a lot of more modern looks do not output well to any format
other than PDF. In fact, some of the formatting in the current OOo books
does not work when output to HTML and some is a bit messy when output to
wiki format. Post-processing may clean it up, but more manual
intervention may be necessary. This is something to consider --and
test-- when deciding which output formats and layouts are wanted.
I would like the documents to use outline numbering because it makes it
easier to reference previous portions of the document. Instead of saying
"Please reference the Formatting Paragraphs section," you would say "Please
reference 7.2 Formatting Paragraphs." This way the user can easily identify
which direction to scroll/flip through the document.
Outline numbering makes a book look much more "technical" and can be
very offputting to ordinary users. So it's good in material for
sysadmins, developers, etc, but I would strongly advise against it in
end-user oriented books, despite the potential advantage you have
mentioned.
Also, on a practical note: you would need to investigate (test) how to
implement automated numbering in the individual chapter files so it
behaves (doesn't change) when part of a compiled book AND the table of
contents displays the correct section and page numbers. The TOC was the
problem in many systems we attempted to use. For example, I really
wanted to use page-numbering-by-chapter (so the page numbers in the
individual chapter files matched those in the compiled book), but the
TOC in the compiled book wouldn't do it correctly. I haven't checked
recently to see if this has changed.
--Jean