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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: users book about KOffice
From:       Raphael Langerhorst <raphael-langerhorst () gmx ! at>
Date:       2004-01-31 10:34:10
Message-ID: 200401311134.10893.raphael-langerhorst () gmx ! at
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Hi all,

I think the most important points for and against writing a book are discussed 
(I want to avoid endless exhausting discussions, I don't have the time for 
it). So I would like to get soon to the state where we can tell whether to 
write a user book or not.

In addition to the given book structure these chapters should be added:

* Extending KOffice
	* KOffice scripting (kjsembed?)
	* DCOP
	* Writing custom plugins/parts
		* A short overview of the KOffice API

in this chapter:
* KOffice and other office suites (including interoperability)
we could add:
	* The Gimp - Krita

+ appendices for various things


plans:

The book should be ready with the next major KOffice release that includes 
scripting and the OOo file formats.

While the individual chapters about KOffice are written the online help should 
also be improved and completed.

Background information and additional stuff should only go into the book - if 
such information should be provided in the online help remains to be decided 
upon.

The book should (IMO) not be a copy of the online help + a few things, it 
should rather be expected that the reader reads it from start to finish and 
it should be in a user friendly form - wheras the online help should be 
straight forward.

languages:
The initial language should be English.
I would be willing to do a German translation (any help?). Any other 
translators here?

publisher:
Is No Starch ok? Maybe we should check various publishers, but this can be 
during the process of writing.

authors:
who is willing to work on the book? Is it ok to have more than one author?
I am willing to do parts of it but I probably won't be able to write all of it 
because of lack of time.

open source book:
Eugene Nine wrote:
>Would it be wise to allow the book to be open source and freely available on
>the web but available from publishers for a fee?
I think we should do it like that - like the kde2 developer book for example.

application to write the book with:
KWord - 1.3 or later (even CVS) because I would like to have it in the OOo 
Writer format, this format is pretty much ready to use in KWord (latest CVS). 
It will get the native format of KWord. Bugs encountered during writing 
should of course be reported and worked on (devel list or KDE bug database). 
If the OOo format for KWord is not mature enough in the beginning it is of 
course also ok to use KWord native (at the beginning).

screenshots:
I think we should include screenshots in the book, but this is for later, just 
mark the places where screenshots are still needed. The later we make them 
the more up-to-date they are.

communication:
I think the koffice@mail.kde.org list is ok for further coordination of the 
book.


Now, should we write a book?

At last there is still the question if the book should be written. I'd like to 
see some answers on the list like +/-, yes/no, or the like in response to 
this paragraph.

Especially: how do you like this idea:
>> 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.

Another suggestion would be to set up a poll on www.koffice.org or even on 
www.kde.org / or a forum? Do we need this?

greetings,
Raphael
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