Re: [libreoffice-users][windows]General Help and Guidence

Hi :)
I am sorry about both those 2 previous emails.  

There is some (limited) documentation at
http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/documentation/
or
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation
The documentation team would greatly appreciate any help and they are a very 
helpful team.  It's a great way to learn a lot and to learn it fast.  


The documentation is mostly already written but needs a substiantial re-working 
from the old OpenOffice guides before it can be put on the website i just gave a 
link to.  Partly this is due to extra functionality that has been developed by 
LibreOffice devs but also the screen-shots need updating and some that was 
work-in-progress anyway.  The first release has only been completed for Writer 
and Calc and the Starter Guide.  Base is the one that needs the most work as a 
lot of it needs to be pulled together from scratch or scattered blogs and bits 
of training programs.  People are actively working on Draw, Impress and i think 
Math so more guides should appear over the next few weeks.  


Lulu are publishing proper books that can be bought
http://stores.lulu.com/opendocument
with a good percentage of the profit going to TDF.

The wiki is a good place to hunt for things that are works-in-progress from the 
various different teams
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Main_Page

I couldn't find the FAQ page because there seemed to be different ones for each 
different app (Writer, Calc, Impress etc) and in a lot of different languages.  
I think the release notes for whichever version you are using might be more 
useful because each release seems to cure more issues and has more 
functionality.  Development is fast-paced even in the stable 3.3.x branch.  


Similar questions do arise from new people all the time and that is fine.  
Different people have different tehnical backgrounds but may be noobs at certain 
other areas so it's not always easy to guess whether someone might be insulted 
by a non-technical answer or feel hopelessly overwhelmed by one that is too 
technical.  Usually the best way is to keep asking questions and perhaps give an 
indication of your own background.  


Yday in a different forum in a question about getting a printer to work the 
person had been a web-designer for 20 years but had apparently never needed to 
trouble-shoot a printer!  Asking them to "ping the printer" was the nudge they 
needed and they were then able to 'guess' the new ip-address for the new printer 
and their Network Admin was able to take that and fix the Dhcp server to 
re-issue the old ip-address to the new printer.  Errr and an early stage had 
been someone hadn't plugged the network cable in!  So the early answer of "check 
the leads" helped!  None of them could solve the entire problem on their own but 
together they got it done with just a gentle couple of nudges that a different 
bunch of people might not have understood and would have had to solve 
differently.  


Giving the same advice to different people time-after-time is not a problem.  As 
you pointed out Faqs and Documentation can often help and need to be updated 
even after they are done first time.  Copy&paste can also help but usually 
questions introduce new slants or bring in different side-issues.  


The person from earlier needs to take the advice given earlier in other threads 
where that person has asked the same question; of talking to the devs mailing 
list, or post a bug-report or check to see if they still have a problem after 
using the work-arounds.  If they had asked the question under a different name 
or if a different person had asked the question then i would have given a 
shorter, and more polite, possibly even friendly answer combining some of those 
ways of moving forwards.  


Regards from
Tom :)




________________________________
From: John B <johnb@email2.me>
To: users@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Fri, 24 June, 2011 13:49:19
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users][windows]General Help and Guidence

Tom

I think in view of the comments below, could you please, (if you have 
one compiled), a complete list of LO links to find LO info; is there a 
list of frequent questions?

This is not sent when you first sign up to [Libreoffice-users] . I 
notice that links do creep in on a kind of need to know basis and some 
are starting to re-occur from the same / similar questions.

This would seem to indicate the need for such a list from the very start.

I have to say that for the "Document Foundation" - Documents do seem 
woefully short - but this might not be the case > if only I knew where 
to find them.

IMHO what might be trivial to the experts (and in fact may prove 
globally trivial) or even what might be considered a mega hurdle in 
programming, I might interpret as a mini bug or an annoyance which can 
be simply resolved by either a bit of knowledge or a work around.

I would hate an email such as this! - but I do understand if you are 
giving out the same advice, time after time.

oh.... and for us newbies to LO >  tutorials (the help files are 
....well...  lets say basic and need updating).

regards

John B


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





On 24/06/2011 12:02, Tom Davies wrote:
> Hi :)
>
> There is no conflicting advice.  Everyone is saying exactly the same thing but
> perhaps it's not being made clear enough.  It is not worth putting the vast
> amount of effort required into fixing the trivial issue that almost no-one
> experiences and that has a simple work-around anyway.
>
> There is a guide on how to install multiple versions of LibreOffice and
> OpenOffice and possibly other products developed from the  original StarOffice
> over the last decade or so.
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
>
>
> The guide is a work-around because a careless,  straight install of both
> occasionally causes intermittent clashes on some machines in certain
> situations.  However, the problems are RARE and only seen in a tiny percentage
> of systems that have multiple instances installed.
>
>
> At worst the problems  do not cause any harm to data or security (except to
> cause one of the programs to close unexpectedly).  They don't open any
> vulnerabilities in the programs nor in other programs nor in the Operating
> System.  Fixing it requires a major re-write of the  code that has been
> developed over the last 10years or so and if done hastily without proper and
> considerable planning could cause major breakages.  It's not something to rush
> and is not something that can be sorted over-night!!
>
>
> LibreOffice devs are working at the first step in the process towards sorting
> it.  The work was not supported in OpenOffice although Sun had begun the
> planning process.  So far that first step, being done by LibreOffice devs, has
> taken an average of over 100 devs over 6 months.  Various other benefits have
> been gained from that, such as tighter, faster, more secure (more stable) 
code.
> Code and functionality from other forks have been integrated into the main
> branch.  Other functionality and developments added.  Ancient bug-reports have
> been and are being solved along with newer issues.  The program size has been
> drastically reduced with benefits in download size, install times and general
> efficiency.
>
>
> So it's NOT trivial, it IS being worked on and there is a simple work-around
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Installing_in_parallel
> to prevent the RARE instances of a non-harmful problem which occasionally 
> arises
> under circumstances that the vast majority of users would NOT experience.
>
>
> If people do ignore all the advice and then fail to read the simple guide that
> keeps on being pointed to for the very tiny number of people that want to try
> running both at the same time then there is a high chance they still wont
> encounter any problems.  IF they do (and that is a big IF) then usually 
turning
> off the Quick Start in OpenOffice (not LibreOffice) and not opening both at 
the
> same time is enough to make sure the minor issue doesn't happen again.
>
>
> It is not worth putting the vast amount of effort required into fixing the
> trivial issue that almost no-one experiences and that has a simple and
> reasonably well-publicised work-around anyway.
>
> Regards from
> Tom :)
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: aqualung<xfekdcugjrkz@mailinator.com>
> To: users@global.libreoffice.org
> Sent: Fri, 24 June, 2011 9:59:33
> Subject: [libreoffice-users] Re: Mac people
>
>
> Ernest Kurtz wrote:
> > Thank you, Alex. Is there any possibility of having an LO Mac list?  This
> > list is deluging my mailbox with queries foreign to my needs and
> > experience.
> The OpenOffice.org community forum does have a
> http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewforum.php?f=17 Mac-specific
> section  as well as a
> http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewforum.php?f=101 LibreOffice
> section , and we welcome queries from Mac people and LibO people.
>
> I recently started a thread about having
> http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Side-by-side-install-of-LibO-and-OOo-tp3078835p3078835.html
> l
>
> LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org coexist  on a computer. I am hearing
> conflicting stories about this, some people say they have both with no
> trouble, others talk about serious interference between the two.
>
> I believe this situation should be addressed very soon, as it is
> unacceptable for one program to demand that you uninstall another first,
> which is the advice given in the LibreOffice 3.3.3 Release Notes. Any
> suggestions on how to capture developers' attention and convince them of the
> seriousness of the matter are welcome!
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Mac-people-tp3092380p3103351.html
> Sent from the Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
>
>
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