From jacob.benj.greene at gmail.com Fri May 4 11:27:34 2018 From: jacob.benj.greene at gmail.com (Jake G.) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 11:27:34 -0700 Subject: [FM Discuss] Introduction, and request for help Message-ID: Hello, My name is Jacob, and I've recently joined the mailing list and FLOSS Manuals. I'm new to writing and editing manuals, but I'm looking to develop these skills and gain experience. I'm not entirely sure if this is the right place to ask, but I thought I might as well include it with my introduction. If any of you are looking for a volunteer, I'd love to join you on your projects to help out with editing or fact checking. I hope to write manuals of my own eventually, but I'd appreciate any opportunity to join you and learn firsthand. Hope you all are having a great day! Best, Jacob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dec4874 at rit.edu Fri May 4 12:34:56 2018 From: dec4874 at rit.edu (Debbie Churchill) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 15:34:56 -0400 Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS Message-ID: Hi everyone! My name is Debbie and I am new to the mailing list and FLOSS. I came here hoping to get more experience writing technical documentation. If anyone needs any help with writing, editing or proof reading please feel free to reach out. I am looking forward to learning! Thanks and regards, Debbie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matrobnew at hotmail.com Fri May 4 13:43:50 2018 From: matrobnew at hotmail.com (M R) Date: Fri, 4 May 2018 20:43:50 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] Introduction, and request for help In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Jacob, and also Debbie. I came to this list with a pretty much identical request about 6 months ago. The guy who basically owns this list and can set you up with permissions -- and who will doubtless answer this later (he's based in UK)--is Mick Chesterman. But I can share my own experience, which has been extremely productive. The premise of Floss manuals, as I'm sure you've seen, is open-source documentation for open-source software. Like you, I actually expected to start just by helping to edit or proofread someone else's manual-in-progress (I have a literature-academic background though also a fair amount of tech experience). However, Mick suggested I should look over the existing Floss books, get a sense of the range of software (and software-uses) they covered, and see if I might have the domain knowledge to either rewrite/update/extend an existing book, or else write a totally new one. As it turns out I ended up doing both. First, I noticed that they had a manual on Audacity, probably the world's leading open-source sound editor. I've had substantial experience with Audacity. It was a good intro manual but also years out of date, so I volunteered to update it to the latest Audacity release. I kept nearly all of the original book's UI exploration and how-to chapters structure, but much of that had to be rewritten as the UI/features had changed so much, and of course it needed new screenshots throughout. This was my first ever experience with working on an end-user manual and it was a perfect way to start. I am a Windows-only person so I needed others to fill in the Mac OS and Linux OS installation pieces, and I easily found volunteers on the list willing to do that. You could do the same whatever your own 'home' OS is. With that being completed successfully (Mick and some others had a look and approved, and the new version was published officially to the Floss platform), I then considered writing (or at least starting) a totally new manual. I've done some video editing as well, and had become aware of a great open-source editor called Shotcut which, being developed by a very small team, had extremely sparse 'official' documentation -- like a handful of brief how-to videos but almost zero textual documentation. So I studied the Floss manual for a different open-source video editor, decided what I would and wouldn't follow in their approach, learned Shotcut a lot better than I had up to that point, and just...wrote it. I did the UI/workflow overview and a bunch of basic how-to chapters, leaving another (promised) section on "advanced" operations for other, later contributors who knew either Shotcut specifically or video editing generally more thoroughly than I did (if some was familiar with, say, color enhancement in some other vid-ed software, presumably they could figure out how Shotcut specifically did that, as it's pretty full-featured). Again I got Mac and Linux users to do their install pieces, but the rest, including extensive screenshots, was all done on my little Windows laptop. A few folks reviewed, and again the manual was published. I detail these just as paradigms to consider following if you want to quickly ramp up your end-user manual experience, and incidentally get some work samples ?. Obviously they involve having some kind of software competence and confidence, but we all use some kind of software, and I've found that nearly every genre of commercial software now has open-source analogs. I'd also note that it doesn't matter whether the open--source software is already documented or not, as long as it's not documented on Floss and esp if there's any room you can see for better/different documentation. As I said, Shotcut had virtually no written documentation, at all, so that was easy. Audacity had extensive (and up to date) official written documentation but more in a help-wiki form than a single manual. I bet there's actually a Floss manual already on how to start writing Floss manuals, with what I've written above; I haven't checked. There's definitely one on how to use the Floss BookType framework/software itself, though as that platform's just been very significantly upgraded, I'm not sure the manual is up to date. Mick would know. Hey, that's an idea.... best, Matt Roberts ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Jake G. Sent: Friday, May 4, 2018 1:27 PM To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] Introduction, and request for help Hello, My name is Jacob, and I've recently joined the mailing list and FLOSS Manuals. I'm new to writing and editing manuals, but I'm looking to develop these skills and gain experience. I'm not entirely sure if this is the right place to ask, but I thought I might as well include it with my introduction. If any of you are looking for a volunteer, I'd love to join you on your projects to help out with editing or fact checking. I hope to write manuals of my own eventually, but I'd appreciate any opportunity to join you and learn firsthand. Hope you all are having a great day! Best, Jacob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ken at fallon.ie Sun May 6 10:10:02 2018 From: ken at fallon.ie (Ken Fallon) Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 19:10:02 +0200 Subject: [FM Discuss] Advice on translation tools Message-ID: <217d724a-8399-4829-52f6-3c9eca52cd26@fallon.ie> Hi All, Apologies if this is not relevant to the list, but I am looking for advice on translating a Creative Commons book my wife wrote. It's about the theories and current research on Autism and is written in Dutch. As a FLOSS advocate myself, I was thinking that flossmanuals.net has the tools that would allow the book to be translated in the open. But I'm not sure it fits with "The thing that binds it all together is that these are resources written under a free licence about applications also written under a Free Software licence." I really want to get started on the English translation. As the book was produced so far using entirely Free Software, I would like the translation service to be equally Free/Open. I'd be interested in any of your thoughts or recommendations on services I could use, I would love to hear about it. -- Regards, Ken Fallon http://kenfallon.com http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=30 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 833 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From M.Chesterman at mmu.ac.uk Sun May 6 13:12:21 2018 From: M.Chesterman at mmu.ac.uk (Mick Chesterman) Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 20:12:21 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] Advice on translation tools In-Reply-To: <217d724a-8399-4829-52f6-3c9eca52cd26@fallon.ie> References: <217d724a-8399-4829-52f6-3c9eca52cd26@fallon.ie> Message-ID: <1525637541632.55353@mmu.ac.uk> Hi there, Just a quick one on this. I think that https://omnibook.pro/ would probably be a good fit for this, Ken. As we are still looking for testers of this service I'll be happy to help via this list too. Thanks Mick ________________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Ken Fallon Sent: 06 May 2018 18:10 To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] Advice on translation tools Hi All, Apologies if this is not relevant to the list, but I am looking for advice on translating a Creative Commons book my wife wrote. It's about the theories and current research on Autism and is written in Dutch. As a FLOSS advocate myself, I was thinking that flossmanuals.net has the tools that would allow the book to be translated in the open. But I'm not sure it fits with "The thing that binds it all together is that these are resources written under a free licence about applications also written under a Free Software licence." I really want to get started on the English translation. As the book was produced so far using entirely Free Software, I would like the translation service to be equally Free/Open. I'd be interested in any of your thoughts or recommendations on services I could use, I would love to hear about it. -- Regards, Ken Fallon http://kenfallon.com http://hackerpublicradio.org/correspondents.php?hostid=30 "Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should read the Manchester Metropolitan University email disclaimer available on its website http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer " From M.Chesterman at mmu.ac.uk Sun May 6 13:14:31 2018 From: M.Chesterman at mmu.ac.uk (Mick Chesterman) Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 20:14:31 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1525637671424.34022@mmu.ac.uk> Hi Debbie, Thanks for introducing yourself. Matt mentioned a manual on FLOSS Manuals. I hope to work on this with other long term volunteers over the summer. I'll keep you posted. But it's great that you can help out and I'm hoping someone can take you up on your offer. Thanks Mick From: Discuss on behalf of Debbie Churchill Sent: 04 May 2018 20:34 To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS Hi everyone! My name is Debbie and I am new to the mailing list and FLOSS. I came here hoping to get more experience writing technical documentation. If anyone needs any help with writing, editing or proof reading please feel free to reach out. I am looking forward to learning! Thanks and regards, Debbie "Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should read the Manchester Metropolitan University email disclaimer available on its website http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matrobnew at hotmail.com Sun May 6 13:38:39 2018 From: matrobnew at hotmail.com (M R) Date: Sun, 6 May 2018 20:38:39 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS In-Reply-To: <1525637671424.34022@mmu.ac.uk> References: , <1525637671424.34022@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: Mick: Yes -- in a way I guess I've already written (in my last email) my own little chapter for the "How to pick a topic for your Floss manual" section of your summer Floss manual manual project. It would be seem to be useful to include the personal on-boarding experiences of at least half a dozen different people, with you as the obvious coordinator and oldest old-timer. I don't really have the summer break of a traditional academic schedule -- quite the opposite in fact -- but as I've said, I think I'd just contribute pretty much what I've already written, unless there's some obvious how-to detail I could include (like ancillary software for screenshots, etc). It also seems now that the Shotcut people might be willing to officially adopt my manual for that, which will doubtless eat what bandwidth I have for a while but is also no doubt a success story in itself. best, Matt ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Mick Chesterman Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 3:14 PM To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net; dec4874 at rit.edu Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS Hi Debbie, Thanks for introducing yourself. Matt mentioned a manual on FLOSS Manuals. I hope to work on this with other long term volunteers over the summer. I'll keep you posted. But it's great that you can help out and I'm hoping someone can take you up on your offer. Thanks Mick From: Discuss on behalf of Debbie Churchill Sent: 04 May 2018 20:34 To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS Hi everyone! My name is Debbie and I am new to the mailing list and FLOSS. I came here hoping to get more experience writing technical documentation. If anyone needs any help with writing, editing or proof reading please feel free to reach out. I am looking forward to learning! Thanks and regards, Debbie "Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should read the Manchester Metropolitan University email disclaimer available on its website http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer " -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From helen at creative-catalyst.com Mon May 7 03:45:19 2018 From: helen at creative-catalyst.com (helen varley jamieson) Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 12:45:19 +0200 Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS In-Reply-To: <1525637671424.34022@mmu.ac.uk> References: <1525637671424.34022@mmu.ac.uk> Message-ID: <6d2bddea-2030-d68d-4b71-d2c0e0e65f3b@creative-catalyst.com> hi debbie & jacob, great to see some more new people coming on board with energy & enthusiasm :) to introduce mysel, i've been involved in FM since long enough ago that i can't remember exactly when. mainly because i'm one of the artist-organisers of UpStage, a web-based platform for cyberformance (live online performance), & we have had our user manual on FM for a very long time. currently it's horribly out of date, largely because we are in the process of a complete rebuild of the software. so at some point in the hopefully-not-too-distant future, we will also be needing a complete rewrite of the manual. i have in the past been more active in the organisation of FM but lately my focus has been on the rebuild of UpStage and numerous other project, so i'm a bit out of touch with all the developments of the last few years. i'm very happy to see new energy coming into the project. helen : ) On 06.05.2018 22:14, Mick Chesterman wrote: > > Hi Debbie, > > > Thanks for introducing yourself. > > > Matt mentioned a manual on FLOSS Manuals. I hope to work on this with > other long term volunteers over the summer. I'll keep you posted. > > > But it's great that you can help out and I'm hoping someone can take > you up on your offer. > > > > Thanks > > Mick > > > *From:* Discuss on behalf of > Debbie Churchill > > *Sent:* 04 May 2018 20:34 > *To:* discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net > *Subject:* [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS > ? > Hi everyone! > My name is Debbie and I am new to the mailing list and FLOSS. > I came here hoping to get more experience writing technical documentation. > If anyone needs any help with writing, editing or proof reading please > feel > free to reach out. > I am looking forward to learning! > Thanks and regards, > Debbie > > "Before acting on this email or opening any attachments you should > read the Manchester Metropolitan University email disclaimer available > on its website http://www.mmu.ac.uk/emaildisclaimer " > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net > http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net - you can unsubscribe here -- helen varley jamieson /*Magdalena M?nchen Saison 2018 */ helen at creative-catalyst.com http://www.creative-catalyst.com http://www.upstage.org.nz -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: hkoieceogceodkbf.jpeg Type: image/jpeg Size: 66261 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rclord at seaserpent.com Mon May 7 14:28:21 2018 From: rclord at seaserpent.com (Rosalind Lord) Date: Mon, 7 May 2018 14:28:21 -0700 Subject: [FM Discuss] New to FLOSS In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <54166368-9DAD-4CBE-98B8-1916068297EA@seaserpent.com> Welcome, Debbie and Jacob (did I get all new people)? - Rosalind > On May 4, 2018, at 12:34 PM, Debbie Churchill wrote: > > Hi everyone! > My name is Debbie and I am new to the mailing list and FLOSS. > I came here hoping to get more experience writing technical documentation. > If anyone needs any help with writing, editing or proof reading please feel > free to reach out. > I am looking forward to learning! > Thanks and regards, > Debbie > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net > http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net - you can unsubscribe here Check out Sea Serpent Design's cards and gifts ... at Zazzle: Doe and Fawn by rclord ... at Redbubble: rclord at seaserpent.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arichrherrmann at yahoo.com Thu May 10 12:05:49 2018 From: arichrherrmann at yahoo.com (Arich Herrmann) Date: Thu, 10 May 2018 19:05:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [FM Discuss] Introduction and Idea References: <1214161970.2102601.1525979149148.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1214161970.2102601.1525979149148@mail.yahoo.com> Hi everyone, My name is Arich and I am a senior majoring in English. I am pursuing a career in technical writing and I have past experience in creating a manual to design a newspaper front page using Adobe InDesign. I'm interested in creating a more user-friendly manual on Greenshot -- an open source screenshot tool -- and I was wondering if this project is something that fits Floss's scope (looking through the website I didn't see any manuals for open source screenshot tools).? Best Regards, Arich -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Martin.Kean at op.ac.nz Mon May 14 17:45:02 2018 From: Martin.Kean at op.ac.nz (Martin Kean) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 00:45:02 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual Message-ID: Hi there, Just wondering if the Audacity manual could do with an edit, and/or rewrite? What do you think? If this could be a good thing let me know : ) Martin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matrobnew at hotmail.com Mon May 14 18:05:32 2018 From: matrobnew at hotmail.com (M R) Date: Tue, 15 May 2018 01:05:32 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Martin: So...as of about January the Audacity manual had undergone a pretty thorough re-write, mostly at my hands with some help on the Mac and Linux bits, partly as a way of updating it from the original 1.2 version (now many years out of date) to 2.2.x, which was current as of this January. All new screenshots, of course, but also lots of changes to feature descriptions etc. At the end of that process Mick and some other folks had a read through, we tweaked a few things and published it. So I guess I'm wondering whether it needs more work at this stage. Of course there are always certain advanced features and functions that could still be addressed, but I would think that would be more a matter of just tacking on a few more how-to chapters. Or are there some specific deficiencies you'd be interested in correcting? I only sort of 'owned' that January re-write, so it's certainly open again as all the published Floss stuff is open. Was just wondering what you had in mind. best, Matt ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Martin Kean Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 7:45 PM To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual Hi there, Just wondering if the Audacity manual could do with an edit, and/or rewrite? What do you think? If this could be a good thing let me know : ) Martin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Martin.Kean at op.ac.nz Tue May 15 19:02:32 2018 From: Martin.Kean at op.ac.nz (Martin Kean) Date: Wed, 16 May 2018 02:02:32 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] Fw: Audacity manual In-Reply-To: References: , Message-ID: Hi Robert, Please see Matt's comments below. Feel free to jump into the debate, that's what the Discuss list is there for! (email back to discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net) As you can see there has been a recent rewrite, but that does not necessarily mean you cannot improve on the manual in a 'before published' state. You will notice in http://write.flossmanuals.net/ that there are at least three Audacity manuals: http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity/ http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity-draft/ http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity-workbook/ Maybe have a look at those and see where improvements might be made. The top link appears to be the one published at http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity/introduction/ Matt or Mick ? would it be a good idea to fork a copy of the current Audacity manual to 'Draft 2' or something for Robert to work on? Would that cause any problems? Thanks! Martin ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of M R Sent: Tuesday, 15 May 2018 1:05 p.m. To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual Hi Martin: So...as of about January the Audacity manual had undergone a pretty thorough re-write, mostly at my hands with some help on the Mac and Linux bits, partly as a way of updating it from the original 1.2 version (now many years out of date) to 2.2.x, which was current as of this January. All new screenshots, of course, but also lots of changes to feature descriptions etc. At the end of that process Mick and some other folks had a read through, we tweaked a few things and published it. So I guess I'm wondering whether it needs more work at this stage. Of course there are always certain advanced features and functions that could still be addressed, but I would think that would be more a matter of just tacking on a few more how-to chapters. Or are there some specific deficiencies you'd be interested in correcting? I only sort of 'owned' that January re-write, so it's certainly open again as all the published Floss stuff is open. Was just wondering what you had in mind. best, Matt ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Martin Kean Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 7:45 PM To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual Hi there, Just wondering if the Audacity manual could do with an edit, and/or rewrite? What do you think? If this could be a good thing let me know : ) Martin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From matrobnew at hotmail.com Tue May 15 19:16:33 2018 From: matrobnew at hotmail.com (M R) Date: Wed, 16 May 2018 02:16:33 +0000 Subject: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual In-Reply-To: References: , , Message-ID: Hi Guys: Martin, I actually thought the original query was coming from you; I guess I didn't get the direct email from the Robert who is presumably of erinandrobert at gmail.com. In any case, as far as I'm concerned anyone who wants to can fork a copy from the main (published) branch to work on. I was just trying to get a sense of the rationale, as any changes will eventually have to be reconciled with the published version, which appears to be pretty much where I left it. I'm certainly not married to my prose in any of my rewritten parts, and would happily accept any editorial suggestions. And as I said before there is tons of room to *extend* the manual toward more advanced features, though presumably that would be more about adding new chapters. There might even have been a new major release of Audacity since January, I haven't checked. As long as someone has bandwidth available, I would hope we'd be able to constantly improve any of these manuals. Just keep me in the loop. Best, Matt ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Martin Kean Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2018 9:02 PM To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Cc: erinandrobertc at gmail.com Subject: [FM Discuss] Fw: Audacity manual Hi Robert, Please see Matt's comments below. Feel free to jump into the debate, that's what the Discuss list is there for! (email back to discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net) As you can see there has been a recent rewrite, but that does not necessarily mean you cannot improve on the manual in a 'before published' state. You will notice in http://write.flossmanuals.net/ that there are at least three Audacity manuals: http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity/ http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity-draft/ http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity-workbook/ Maybe have a look at those and see where improvements might be made. The top link appears to be the one published at http://write.flossmanuals.net/audacity/introduction/ Matt or Mick ? would it be a good idea to fork a copy of the current Audacity manual to 'Draft 2' or something for Robert to work on? Would that cause any problems? Thanks! Martin ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of M R Sent: Tuesday, 15 May 2018 1:05 p.m. To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual Hi Martin: So...as of about January the Audacity manual had undergone a pretty thorough re-write, mostly at my hands with some help on the Mac and Linux bits, partly as a way of updating it from the original 1.2 version (now many years out of date) to 2.2.x, which was current as of this January. All new screenshots, of course, but also lots of changes to feature descriptions etc. At the end of that process Mick and some other folks had a read through, we tweaked a few things and published it. So I guess I'm wondering whether it needs more work at this stage. Of course there are always certain advanced features and functions that could still be addressed, but I would think that would be more a matter of just tacking on a few more how-to chapters. Or are there some specific deficiencies you'd be interested in correcting? I only sort of 'owned' that January re-write, so it's certainly open again as all the published Floss stuff is open. Was just wondering what you had in mind. best, Matt ________________________________ From: Discuss on behalf of Martin Kean Sent: Monday, May 14, 2018 7:45 PM To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net Subject: [FM Discuss] Audacity manual Hi there, Just wondering if the Audacity manual could do with an edit, and/or rewrite? What do you think? If this could be a good thing let me know : ) Martin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: ATT00001.txt URL: