[FM Discuss] Thunderbird manual feedback

[adam]

I have seldom found that 'figuring out on their own' is a universal best
practice. everything needs an explanation otherwise i dont think fm
would exist. 

that we need to explain more is certainly true...and i would say that
the topics you discuss James are good topics but need to be integrated
in a nice way into the manual to fill it out...perhaps we just need to
find out what they naturally lead on from and what they lead in to...

my feedback on the manual is that it looks like a great start and we
have a good basis for the sprint. If you were looking to pointers for
immediately improving the manual I would say you need more
narrative...chapters for installation, for example, are more palatable
if they have a friendly voice walking the 'user' (I hate that term)
through the process ...so they dont feel so scared ;)


adam




On Mon, 2010-10-11 at 14:07 -0500, James Simmons wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> One gripe I have with your manual is that it doesn't explain enough.
> For instance, at work I use Thunderbird as an alternative to the Lotus
> Notes email client.  (If you've ever used Notes you'd know why).  To
> set that up I needed to know about IMAP, LDAP, SMTP servers, and how
> to figure out what the values are for each.  Your manual doesn't go
> into that.  It just walks through screen shots telling me stuff most
> people could figure out on their own.
> 
> James Simmons
> 
> 
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:18 PM, Mark <mark.brennan at gmx.com> wrote:
> > Hello All -
> >
> > With the Thunderbird user manual book sprint coming up soon, I want to bring
> > the group up to date with progress that we have made on it and with what
> > still needs to be done. I would also like to ask the list members for
> > feedback on what we have written so far.
> >
> > For the initial version of the manual, we focused on how to install
> > Thunderbird and how to use it for basic e-mail tasks. We wrote chapters on
> > installation, account setup, fetching e-mail, composing messages, and
> > sending messages. In this way we are creating a manual that helps people use
> > Thunderbird for their daily e-mail tasks. Later on, we can enhance it by
> > adding chapters for more advanced topics like RSS feeds, add-ons, and the
> > Lightning calendar.
> >
> > Here is the list of chapters with draft versions and the ones that are on
> > the to-do list.
> >
> > Basic features - chapter drafts complete and in need of review
> > Installation
> > -- Windows
> > -- Mac OS X
> > -- Ubuntu Install
> > Switch to Thunderbird
> > -- Account Set Up
> > -- Migrate To Thunderbird
> > Basic Usage
> > -- Get Mail
> > -- Compose Messages
> > -- Read and Organize Mail
> > Address Book
> > -- Address Book
> >
> > Basic features - chapters not started
> > -- Security
> > -- Uninstalling
> > -- Help and Support
> >
> > Advanced features - chapters not started
> > -- RSS
> > -- Add-Ons
> > -- Lightning
> > -- Keyboard shortcuts
> > -- Tagging and marking
> > -- Filters
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Mark Brennan
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> > http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
> >
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