'Re: users book about KOffice'

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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: users book about KOffice
From:       Seth Kurtzberg <seth () cql ! com>
Date:       2004-01-31 2:22:59
Message-ID: 63398F6B-5394-11D8-B0BF-000A959AF1CE () cql ! com
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On Jan 30, 2004, at 10:51 AM, Eugene Nine wrote:

>
>
> ---------- 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.

OK, but that doesn't prevent you from having a button you can click on 
to go to a more detailed treatment.  The user experience can be 
unchanged.

>>
>> 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.

I don't have word 2000.

>
>> greetings,
>> Raphael
>>
>> --
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Seth Kurtzberg
CTO
ISEC Research and Network Operations Center
480-314-1540
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