Hi
My name is Luke Kendall.
I'm now a full-time author (sci-fi/fantasy), for the last four years.
My previous working background (35yrs) was as a programmer, mainly C. Areas were computer graphics (mainly design programs for artists in business contexts), user interfaces, user experience, typesetting, fonts. Also some documentation.
Perhaps more significantly, my wife, before she died, was a PhD in English and had an extremely successful career as a technical writer, focusing mainly on User Guides. She was successful in that every contract she had produced guides that were wildly appreciated by their target audiences.
We both shared a deep interest in good documentation - and I was fortunate to be present at her first steps as she entered the field, and saw first hand how she interacted with the users of the powerful and loved sign-writing system the company I worked for was developing at the time. It was eye-opening to see how much difference a good explanation of how to use the system made, to the end users.
I have worked closely with many technical writers and user experience engineers over the years, as well as working closely and directly with users of the design systems I and my teams have developed, to get feedback on usability, desired features, manage expectations, and help users work with the (often complex and powerful) design systems.
I personally have used a wide range of word processors. (Pages on NeXTstep, FrameMaker on Solaris; troff/MM, TeX/Latex, LyX, MacWrite, Word in its many generations, OpenOffice and LibreOffice - in pretty much all its generations since StarOffice - WPS, TextMaker, and others I've definitely forgotten.)
I must state upfront that my fiction writing takes up the great majority of my time, so I won't be able to contribute as much as I would like. That's assuming you even wanted me to!
I've dipped my toe in here for several reasons:
- Self-interest: I work under Linux, and use LO for writing and producing my books (along with Calibre and Scribus).
- Despite suffering stress and lost time and wasted effort due to problems in my use of LO, I still like it best.
- A passion for free and open software.
- A desire to help make LO better.
- A recent specific problem that led me to a specific issue I wish to improve.
- Fruitful discussions about that issue with Olivier Hallot, and at https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/21875/writer-clarification-needed-about-character-attributes
- Browsing the documentation ML archives (just a little)
That's probably too much for an introduction. I'll leave it at that.
Best regards,
luke