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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: users book about KOffice
From:       "Eugene Nine" <enine () ninefamily ! com>
Date:       2004-01-30 17:51:01
Message-ID: 200401300951.AA90308706 () ninefamily ! com
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---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Raphael Langerhorst" <raphael-langerhorst@gmx.at>
Reply-To: For discussion about KOffice <koffice@mail.kde.org>
Date:  Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:03:41 +0100 (MET)

> > On Friday 30 January 2004 16:05, Seth Kurtzberg wrote:
> > > I've been watching the discussion and wondering when this would come
> > > up.  The justification for doing this rather than enhancing the online
> > > documentation is?
> > > 
> > 
> > A good point, I totally agree with you that the parts of the book covering
> > the 
> > individual apps can just as well be added to the online help, there are
> > only 
> > a few differences for me:
> > 
> > Motivation for writing a book would be:
> > * you can put more background knowledge/... in it wheras the online help 
> > should be straight forward
> > * you can build on top of previous chapters in the book, like "a guided
> > tour 
> > through KOffice" wheras the online help should be understandable when you 
> > only read that very bit of it you need (IMHO).
> 
> sorry, forgot about that one:
> * people that read the online doc already have KOffice installed... which
> means that they at least consider using it as an office suite (or their distro
> installed it by default). With a book you normally can reach people that are
> "evaluating" things before they use it. And I think the time where many
> people blindly use MS Office is more and more past, There are more than 5 books on
> OOo in German language alone for example. My feeling is that people a)
> should have the possibiltiy to evaluate their software and b) that people that
> truly evaluate software are often first searching for a book about it.
> 
Thats a good point, however what will make people want to search out and buy a book \
on an office app they don't know about?  There would have to be some way to dray \
interest to the book.

> > 
> > 
> > But I fully agree with you that actually the online help should be
> > improved 
> > rather than writing a full book.
> 
> but this statement still holds for sure. What about this timeline:
> 
> first...
> * improving/completing the online help
> then...
> * writing the book which can partly be derived/based on the online help
> 
> I think with the roadmap(?) we have for KOffice we have enough time for
> both: online help and a book, provided that there are enough people working on
> these. I think documentation is important, although less than 10% are actually
> using it... but I myself just bought a book about OpenOffice.org (and didn't
> want to read the online help because I prefer reading a "real" book, although
> the online help of OpenOffice.org is surely very good(?)).
> 
> Online help IMO is important while working with the application (yes, I
> sometimes read a few things up in OOo's online help) while a book is important
> for getting to know the application.
> 
I personally think that online help should be short and simple.  If I'm in an app and \
need to know how to do something I should be able to within a couple clicks drill \
down to those instructions.  I don't want to stop and read background of the app, \
etc.  I find myself not using the online help much because its too time consuming.  \
For example I was playing with frames to see what I could do with outlining.  I tried \
to drap and drop a frame in the document structure pane but it didn't allow me to do \
so.  Pull up the help, scroll down a few pages and find the chapter on frames, skim \
down, hit next, skim down some more, next, etc.  I think online help should be no \
more than one screen full of information at a time so I can quickly get the answer \
and go.  
> 
> And, another reason for writing a book would be:
> * KOffice has more potential because it builds on very good ground (QT/KDE)
> whereas OOo has nothing they can build upon (=much more source code = harder
> to handle = redundant work). So in the long run KOffice will be the better
> application - and a book would make good PR. But I must really say that I'm sad
> about the fact that there need to be multiple OSS office suites, but maybe
> this is needed because of diverse(?) interest of people...
> 
Having multiple office apps isn't necessarily a bad thing.  If we only had one then \
we would begin to fall into the lack of choice trap of the Windows world.  There are \
those Linux users who dislike KDE for whatever reason and would still prefer to use \
OO.  I think the biggest thing we need to do is standardize file formats so one \
doesn't have to import/export.  Example now is the windows world, the standard is \
pretty much MSOffice docs, you can be sure that if you e-mail a resume in word 2000 \
the receiver will have word 2000, its become an assumption that anyone you send your \
docs to or anyone whom downloads from your website will be able to open a word doc \
with minimal work.  Once we get to a standard format we can then start to make that \
same assumption and simply send documents without worry if the user has the program \
installed with proper import filters.  Thats something we already know, but what it \
will allow if the user to use his preference of program to open the doc so there will \
still be room to compete/differ in useability.

> greetings,
> Raphael
> 
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