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List:       koffice
Subject:    Re: users book about KOffice
From:       Raphael Langerhorst <raphael-langerhorst () gmx ! at>
Date:       2004-02-13 14:40:06
Message-ID: 200402131540.07255.raphael-langerhorst () gmx ! at
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On Friday 13 February 2004 10:04, Marc Heyvaert wrote:
> [...]
> BTW, I'm toying with the idea of doing a book on
> KSpread. When I started with spreadsheets, most
> programs came with very good manuals, that took you
> gently through the application. Multiplan (remember
> that one :) ), was like this, so was Lotus 1-2-3 or
> Symphony (that really got me started). Even not so
> long ago, I remember Quattro Pro had a very good and
> extensive manual. Today most applications assume that
> everyone is quite thoroughly acquainted with the
> concept of a spreadsheet program. Books about MS
> Office, or OpenOffice, will cover the functionality of
> the spreadsheet-part in 100 to 150 pages, because
> there is all that other stuff that they have to cram
> in.

I think an extensive book about one app would be really great. There are 
probably many people that use spreadsheets a lot and no other office app at 
all (and the same with other apps). I think this is especially the case in 
companies. Also it would allow for a really deep walkthrough through the 
application. I would certainly like to see such a book.

>
> So I'm a bit nostalgic about the kind of book that
> would show you all the functionalities of the program,
> by using extensive examples, screenshots, etc. and
> really explain things well. I don't see this as
> something that can replace the help/manual, nor as a
> pure tutorial, but as something in between...

see above. I agree with having an extensive walkthrough.

>
> My prefered format for such a book would be HTML or
> XML (I no specialist), I mean something that you can
> read on the internet, preferably also offered on one
> page, so that you can print it efficiently, and of
> cours .pdf and .ps on top of that. And perhaps
> integrated into the program, either as a link to a
> web-page, or as an extra help-item. And free
> of-course, I mean under GNU Free Documentation
> Licence. The guy on sourcebeat.com has a point of
> course when he points out that written books about
> (open source) programs are rapidly obsolete.

This is surely a good idea. Having the "book" on www.koffice.org as a 
accompanying guide would be great. But if possible we should also provide a 
printed version - I for example prefer having a real book in my hands if it's 
more than 100 pages.

>
> Marc
>

note: if you really plan to do such a book and you need one or the other help 
on it, I would like to help as much as time allows. Especially I'm also a 
developer and currently I'm trying to get a feeling for the kspread source 
code, that would probably also help for a book.

Raphael
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