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Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:21:53 +0000
From: Ian McNulty <ian@mcnultymedia.co.uk>
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To: user@ofbiz.apache.org
Subject: Re: Migration of Manager Ref PDFs to Wiki Format
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David,

I know you have enough to do already, so absolutely no rush from my end 
at all.

One thing I do think essential is to consolidate the fragment that exist 
in the other locations I mentioned (itemised in my comments at 
http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBENDUSER/Areas+Being+Worked+On

The reasoning behind my belief that pruning redundant material is even 
more important than adding new stuff, comes from Lavoisier's preface to 
the book generally perceived as being the foundation of modern 
chemistry, "Trait� El�mentaire de Chimie." 
http://www.chem.yale.edu/~chem125/125/history99/2Pre1800/Lavoisier/Preface/discours.html

"We think only through the medium of words. ----The art of reasoning is 
nothing more than a language well arranged."

"Our only aim ought to be ease and perspicuity, and with the utmost care 
to keep every thing out of view which might draw aside the attention of 
the student; it is a road which we should be continually rendering more 
smooth, and from which we should endeavour to remove every obstacle 
which can occasion delay.

Then again, Lavoisier was tried and executed as a traitor at the age of 
51. As the judge said, "The Republic has no need of scientists." So he's 
not an act I'd particularly like to follow myself ;)

Ian


David E. Jones wrote:
>
> I forgot to mention: I'll work on doing this later this week 
> (hopefully... ;) ) if no one beats me to it.
>
> -David
>
>
> On Mar 7, 2007, at 1:40 PM, David E. Jones wrote:
>
>>
>> Thanks for the details on this Ian. I think based on this what Scott 
>> proposed was a good idea, but it's probably best to move this over to 
>> the end user doc space now and then get it into the normal doc 
>> management process we hope for (ie allow people to casually comment 
>> on it, but have a smaller and hopefully more experienced and 
>> dedicated group actually changing it.
>>
>> -David
>>
>>
>> On Mar 7, 2007, at 6:17 AM, Ian McNulty wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Scott,
>>>
>>> Your message arrived at last! Many thanks.
>>>
>>> Yes it was very laborious work. Getting on for a hundred hours in 
>>> total if you include finding the right software for the conversion, 
>>> researching the extent of the currently existing fragments in the 
>>> Wiki, learning the Wiki markup etc. And not great for the RSI in my 
>>> mouse arm either. A dirty job, but somebody had to to it ;)
>>>
>>> I really am a bit reluctant to comment any more than I already have 
>>> on the current content of the docs. As far as I understand it, they 
>>> were written by a professional technical writer (which I certainly 
>>> am not) and cost something like $40,000 to produce, so they are of 
>>> considerable value as they stand. I treated them as such, and made 
>>> every effort not to drop even one single word.
>>>
>>> As for developing them further, I'm afraid this is way out of my 
>>> league. Two months after installing OFBiz, I still don't feel 
>>> confident I know how to work it myself, let alone teach anybody else.
>>>
>>> I originally started translating the PDFs into editable format with 
>>> the aim of re-jigging them into something that I or any of my 
>>> clients might be able to use. But after more than a week's work I 
>>> eventually had to admit defeat and decided simply to translate them 
>>> as they stood in the hope that others might succeed where I had 
>>> failed. So any further development of this material really would 
>>> need to be done by anybody else except me.
>>>
>>> I appreciate your offer of help in answering any questions I might 
>>> have, but there are so many that answering them all would probably 
>>> mean having to write an entire User's Manual yourself, which would 
>>> kindof defeat the purpose of the exercise!
>>>
>>> That said, your thanks are appreciated. I just hope that these docs 
>>> can now be developed into something useful and that I have been able 
>>> to make some kind of contribution towards the further development of 
>>> the OFBiz end-user community.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Ian
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Scott Gray wrote:
>>>> Hi Ian
>>>>
>>>> I believe these will eventually end up in the End-User docs section 
>>>> that you mention below, but I wouldn't recommend moving them there 
>>>> until any major revisions have been completed.
>>>> How do you (and anyone else reading) feel about the current content 
>>>> of the docs?  If you or anyone else has time to contribute to them 
>>>> further then that should take place on the wiki for now, and once 
>>>> any efforts to improve them have slowed down, they could then be 
>>>> moved over to the OFBENDUSER space to protect the work that has 
>>>> been done.
>>>> I'd be happy to try and answer any questions you might have if you 
>>>> decide to work on this further (and I'm sure others would too).
>>>>
>>>> Personally I think you've done a great job migrating the docs and I 
>>>> can guess how laborious the task must have been (I gave it a go 
>>>> myself at one point).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Scott
>>>>
>>>> Ian McNulty wrote:
>>>>> Hi All,
>>>>>
>>>>> I posted news of this a couple of days ago but put it in the 
>>>>> General questions thread by mistake, so thought I ought to try 
>>>>> again on a new thread.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've now finished migrating the complete set of Undersun Manager 
>>>>> Reference PDFs to Wiki format.
>>>>>
>>>>> I couldn't get access to the OFBiz End-User Documentation section 
>>>>> so was advised by Jacopo to put them under my Confluence Home page 
>>>>> at:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/~ian@mcnultymedia.co.uk/Manager+References 
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Is this where they should stay, or do they now need be moved into 
>>>>> a public section of the Wiki where they can be amended and refined 
>>>>> by others as the project develops?
>>>>>
>>>>> Ian
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>

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