What areas of calibre's documenation need improvement? - Page 2

theducks · 08-15-2011, 11:03 PM

Techie people are the wrong people to ask.

I have been repairing and using computers since the punched tape days (PDP-8L with a ASR-33 console

) I can find the on button on just about anything made

Here is some disk drives we had(all those boxes = 10G. They ran on 60Amps of 208V 3 phase power

I have flash drives with more storage) 8 sets of in the computer room.

unboggling · 08-16-2011, 12:27 AM

Ah the good old days. Mainframes. Multix. DEC VAXs, DCL. I'm not an educator either, but I was a social worker before I went tech (computers being less frustrating to work with than humans, I thought). I vaguely remember that sometimes I got in trouble when I assumed a human knew something in whatever competency was being addressed.

Marcy · 08-16-2011, 01:46 AM

The search needs to be improved. I don't think I've ever once found the answer to my question in the documentation by searching. I've sometimes failed my search, posted here, and then been pointed to the correct part of the documentation that I couldn't find myself.

I also think the docs need to be de-techied. I'm pretty geeky, yet don't always understand the docs. Someone who is less geeky than me (probably 90% of the population) is going to have a hard time with them.

-Marcy

unboggling · 08-16-2011, 10:05 PM

@Halo, sorry, I didn't intend to hijack this thread. I'll shut up now.

TreborPugly · 08-17-2011, 10:39 PM

Walk throughs can be good. Screen shots are okay, but too many in a walk-thru or description can make it hard to find the text that actually teaches you something.

One type of screen shot I've always liked is a screen shot in the center of a graphic that has a ton of arrows and text boxes around it, telling you about what buttons do and what purpose different sections have. (We can now acheive alot of that with pop-up text in the program itself, but in a manual you can direct people to the most useful buttons first)

I'll second the motion to improve the regular expression help. I'm still very trial-and-error on editing those.

BookJunkieLI · 08-18-2011, 12:35 PM

I'll be interested to see what you come up with as I'm also in the early process of writing several beginner level tutorials for a seminar I give at convention on Calibre. The seminar evolved from how to pick an ereader to how to convert fanfic to ereader friendly files to why Calibre is the one program you absolutely must have.

My biggest suggestion is do not try be 'cute' when describing things. There is a tutorial which shall remain nameless that has information I really want to know about but I cannot get past the cutsey language, "Oh, see how simple that was? Isn't this so much fun? Now let's try this easy step!" in it to actually learn what it's trying to teach. Well, actually I spend so much time trying to skim past the crap to get to the actual information that I know I'm missing things. It's one thing to lay things out - Step A, Step B, Step C or A means this, B means this, C means this it's another thing entirely to treat a user like a two-year old.

HarryT · 08-18-2011, 12:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BookJunkieLI

it's another thing entirely to treat a user like a two-year old.

Unless, of course, you're writing a presentation for senior management at a large company, in which case a presentation pitched at 2-year-olds, with lots of bright colours and simple words, is the perfect level to aim for.

I speak from experience.

travger · 08-24-2011, 02:49 PM

@Halo

1. Tried to search and find out what exactly is composite column and where to use it and how can I get one. Result was some links to rather technical language.

2. Some explaining glossary would be very important - for non-english people it could be rather difficult to know exact terms (not to recognize it when it's spoken of, but to know the right term to search for)

3. I've swiped a template which should do exactly what I need, but have no idea where I must paste it. There's no pictures in templates section!

Creating subgenres was a breeze - looked at the pictures and followed the manual, it's totally understandable even without actually trying it out.

08-15-2011, 11:03 PM	#16
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,057 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	Techie people are the wrong people to ask. I have been repairing and using computers since the punched tape days (PDP-8L with a ASR-33 console ) I can find the on button on just about anything made Here is some disk drives we had(all those boxes = 10G. They ran on 60Amps of 208V 3 phase power I have flash drives with more storage) 8 sets of in the computer room. Attached Thumbnails

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08-16-2011, 12:27 AM	#17
unboggling Wizard Posts: 1,065 Karma: 858115 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kobo Clara, Kindle Paperwhite 10	Ah the good old days. Mainframes. Multix. DEC VAXs, DCL. I'm not an educator either, but I was a social worker before I went tech (computers being less frustrating to work with than humans, I thought). I vaguely remember that sometimes I got in trouble when I assumed a human knew something in whatever competency was being addressed.

08-16-2011, 01:46 AM	#18
Marcy Guru Posts: 897 Karma: 950683 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kobo Libra2	The search needs to be improved. I don't think I've ever once found the answer to my question in the documentation by searching. I've sometimes failed my search, posted here, and then been pointed to the correct part of the documentation that I couldn't find myself. I also think the docs need to be de-techied. I'm pretty geeky, yet don't always understand the docs. Someone who is less geeky than me (probably 90% of the population) is going to have a hard time with them. -Marcy

08-16-2011, 10:05 PM	#19
unboggling Wizard Posts: 1,065 Karma: 858115 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kobo Clara, Kindle Paperwhite 10	@Halo, sorry, I didn't intend to hijack this thread. I'll shut up now.

08-17-2011, 10:39 PM	#20
TreborPugly Member Posts: 13 Karma: 954 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: Mobipocket reader on Blackberry, XO using FBreader, Kindle	Walk throughs can be good. Screen shots are okay, but too many in a walk-thru or description can make it hard to find the text that actually teaches you something. One type of screen shot I've always liked is a screen shot in the center of a graphic that has a ton of arrows and text boxes around it, telling you about what buttons do and what purpose different sections have. (We can now acheive alot of that with pop-up text in the program itself, but in a manual you can direct people to the most useful buttons first) I'll second the motion to improve the regular expression help. I'm still very trial-and-error on editing those.

08-18-2011, 12:35 PM	#21
BookJunkieLI Evangelist Posts: 435 Karma: 572984 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Long Island Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kindle 4, Nook Gl4, Nook STR, REB 1100, Ebookwise 1500,	I'll be interested to see what you come up with as I'm also in the early process of writing several beginner level tutorials for a seminar I give at convention on Calibre. The seminar evolved from how to pick an ereader to how to convert fanfic to ereader friendly files to why Calibre is the one program you absolutely must have. My biggest suggestion is do not try be 'cute' when describing things. There is a tutorial which shall remain nameless that has information I really want to know about but I cannot get past the cutsey language, "Oh, see how simple that was? Isn't this so much fun? Now let's try this easy step!" in it to actually learn what it's trying to teach. Well, actually I spend so much time trying to skim past the crap to get to the actual information that I know I'm missing things. It's one thing to lay things out - Step A, Step B, Step C or A means this, B means this, C means this it's another thing entirely to treat a user like a two-year old.

08-24-2011, 02:49 PM	#23
travger Evangelist Posts: 485 Karma: 270594 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: palm tx, Windows7, Galaxy A5	@Halo 1. Tried to search and find out what exactly is composite column and where to use it and how can I get one. Result was some links to rather technical language. 2. Some explaining glossary would be very important - for non-english people it could be rather difficult to know exact terms (not to recognize it when it's spoken of, but to know the right term to search for) 3. I've swiped a template which should do exactly what I need, but have no idea where I must paste it. There's no pictures in templates section! Creating subgenres was a breeze - looked at the pictures and followed the manual, it's totally understandable even without actually trying it out.

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