[OLPC library] Laptop Manual deadlines

[SJ Klein]

No rush on art; just fyi since there was a dearth of open art projects 
before, and now some good work like lee's line drawings of XOs in various 
positions that would be good additions to the wiki-manual.  I want to put 
the manual in joyride tomorrow to encourage activity develpers to add 
screenshots and how-tos for their own projects.

SJ


On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, Nicole Lee wrote:

> sj: probably not tomorrow, but i have at least 4 [including myself] coming
> down on sunday. i wish things weren't so busy with finals and all, or i'd
> gladly come both days, but as it is...
>
> as far as the simplified user manual stuff: a large portion of community:art
> is college aged, so we're all rather busy right now. ideally, winter break
> should be a good time for us to be productive, but if there is anything you
> want by tomorrow that can be done relatively quickly... [for example, i have
> a loaner XO and a camera - this alone could be used to make simple,
> effective images for documentation]
>
> -nikki
>
> On Dec 6, 2007 3:41 PM, Samuel Klein <sj at laptop.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Anne,
>>
>> Copying the library list.
>>
>> I'd like to put a single-file version of the simplified manual into our
>> joyride builds tomorrow.  A pdf or single-page html version would be
>> perfect; and worth linking from the main [[manual]] page.
>>
>> Seth, if you have suggestions for UI changes, please note them on
>> [[talk:library]].  Nikki, as rep of the art team, copying you on the
>> discussion of illustration of these docs (and since I hope to see you
>> tomorrow...)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> SJ
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 6 Dec 2007, adam hyde wrote:
>>
>>> hi Anne,
>>>
>>> Very nice to be in touch with you.
>>>
>>> Anne Gentle wrote:
>>>> Hi Adam,
>>>> I've been working on the Simplified User Guide at
>>>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Simplified_users_guide but I'm also
>>>> interested in writing for the other Groups described on the Manual
>>>> page
>>>
>>> I have looked through the documentation and can see there is already a
>>> lot of good material. You worked on the Simplified pages by yourself?
>>>
>>>> Currently I also take the wiki content over to an Author-it instance
>>>> to get a PDF out of it. Well, and Author-it is used because of an
>>>> Idiom WorldServer setup for translation as well. But what we could do
>>>> with the FLOSSManual site has so much potential, I'm excited to read
>>>> more. I have been studying wikis for documentation (couple of
>>>> representative articles here and here).
>>>
>>> I am very glad you see the potential for FM in this context, it is good
>>> to hear this from you as you are clearly very experienced with different
>>> documentation and wiki systems.
>>>
>>> FM is building a toolset that I think could be of use to OLPC as it is a
>>> wiki that is built with collabortive online, digital, and book
>>> publishing in mind. I really researched a lot before building it and was
>>> surprised that nothing was out there so we built custom widgets for
>>> TWiki and its now a pretty tight system with remixing, automatic PDF
>>> generation, inline image editing, credit tracking, drag and drop index
>>> generation, and soon an integrated translation system, and a nice RSS
>>> publisher.
>>>
>>> So the feature set is rich and there is more to come. If there is
>>> anyway FLOSS Manuals can be of use then please let me know. We are also
>>> open to building features that could help (eg new export formats etc),
>>> so if you think of something you need then we can discuss how it could
>>> be integrated into FM.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I love that you have a print option and that the contributors are
>>>> output as a page in the PDF out put as well. You've set up a great
>>>> wiki-based documentation process to get PDFs and I can't wait to peel
>>>> away the layers and see how it works. I've been blogging about wikis
>>>> for documentation and constantly on the lookout for examples, and this
>>>> site is such an excellent example. (see www.justwriteclick.com for
>>>> more about me). I can't wait to write a blog entry about
>>>> FLOSSManuals.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Great! I am excited to hear this. I am happy to explain more about it.
>>> There is also a manual on FLOSS Manuals here:
>>> http://en.flossmanuals.net/FLOSSManuals
>>>
>>>> So, welcome, and your insight and experience with wikis for
>>>> documentation will be very valuable.
>>>
>>> Thank you for the welcome, I am very happy to have been introduced to
>>> you and the OLPC doc team.
>>>
>>>> I don't know how much background knowledge you have about the XO but I
>>>> have been emulating it on Windows to write the docs from the
>>>> end-user's perspective and to capture screenshots easily.
>>>
>>> Mel gave me a tour of the laptop and I borrowed one for a couple of
>>> nights at Wikimania this year. I was really excited about the
>>> possibility of helping with some documentation. At that point it was a
>>> bit tricky as I could not access a machine but I had never considered
>>> emulating it. I have since looked through the forums and the wiki and
>>> can see there is a lot written about how to do this. Is there any
>>> specific method you think is easier under windows or linux for building
>>> the image and emulating it?
>>>
>>>> For ongoing conversations about doc related to the XO project, we're
>>>> using the http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library list.
>>>
>>> Just subscribed.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Please, feel free to ask me any questions or use the library list if
>>>> you feel so inspired. I haven't yet gotten myself on IRC (I must
>>>> admit, I haven't been on an IRC channel for about six years, ha) but
>>>> will do so as needed.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks, and I'm looking forward to learning from you.
>>>
>>> Thanks. I am also looking forward to learning from you and the OLPC doc
>>> team.
>>>
>>> adam
>>
>>
>>
>