[FM Discuss] Thunderbird manual feedback

[Mark]

Thanks to everyone who replied for the feedback.

My goal is a user manual that my 70-something mother-in-law could use. 
When I looked around the Internet I couldn't find a guide that did just 
that. I found lots of short how-to articles that described various setup 
and usage tasks but nothing that took someone from installation to 
reading an e-mail. So, that's what I tried to write.

I do want a manual that leaves users confident that they can use 
Thunderbird and not scared by the complexity of it. I think it's a good 
idea to make the chapters a bit more (okay, a lot more) friendly and 
less cold. Also, I'll figure out how to add some more technical 
information to it.

James - I have used Notes and I agree that Thunderbird is much better 
(and Notes' calendar features are really horrible). I didn't envision 
the audience for this manual as people looking to setup and use 
Thunderbird in a work setting in place of Notes or Outlook. Maybe we can 
add this topic as a chapter.

I am very much looking forward to the sprint and seeing how the manual 
gets better with input from more people.

Thanks again,

Mark

On 10/11/2010 04:45 PM, Lana Brindley wrote:
> On 10/12/2010 06:07 AM, 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
>>
>
> Hi James,
>
> I'd say you're getting your audiences confused here. From Mark's 
> email, he's writing a user guide (<quote>we are creating a manual that 
> helps people use Thunderbird for their daily e-mail tasks</quote>). 
> What you want is an administrator's guide.
>
> Similar, but different ;)
>
> L
>
>
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