-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Roman, Am 17.02.2007 um 10:20 schrieb Roman Joost: > Hi Axel, > > my apologize - I just haven't had the time to read and think about > your > proposal. No problemo. Thinking is indeed very important at this point. >> [...] >> I just can't follow the idea of making a 3 step difference between >> beginners, advanced users and experts. For sure these experience >> levels exist, but does it make any sense to differentiate the manual >> this way? Sure we have to build an entrance to GIMP for the absolute >> beginners, but is "sharpening an image" really a topic for an >> Intermediate while "Setting the tile cache" is for Beginners? I doubt >> so. > Hm yes - we don't have to point out this too explicitly. Actually I > think it became convenient to structure it like it is now. By > splitting > the content into something for beginners, intermediate and advanced > users we try to provide some kind of orientation for our readers. No doubt we need some kind of kick fo for the users to get a feeling for GIMP in - lets say installation + 2 hours. - -> Part I needs a very sexy chapter to get the first time user falling in love with GIMP. Some kind of "never as good as the first time" thing, you know :) - --> Anybody any suggestions for the content of that? It should be something not to advanced but impressive that most of our users can identify with. > >> How about: >> II. How do I become a GIMP wizard? >> [...] >> > I like the idea of a reorganisation, but let me post my thoughts about > one too. > > In short: I found it very handy to reading a section which assembles > some concepts and tutorials. Because it kept me going to handle > something complex. [x] agreed > > A few weekends ago, I found a very complex flight simulator (Falcon > 4.0) in my cupboard which I bought several years ago but never got > into > it. It features a very big manual (ow... the good old times where > games > were shipped with printed manuals ;) and the way the authors trying to > teach you flying a F-16 Fighting Falcon is very interesting. Not > that I > want to compare GIMP with an airplane, but navigating and using > might be > quite similar. In fact, both things are very complex. Yeah, but crashing GIMP or an image doesn't hurt so much as smashing an F-16 into a rock :) Btw. I've been reading in a PS 5 manual, as well as in some M$ Word / Excel manuals, a book about FrameMaker <sniff /> and an XPress manual -> each of them has a different approach. None of them has a reference part as we do (and which we can very proud of I think) and the ones that tried to explain the how to work with xy while explaining one command after another where as far the worst. All of the more recent manuals do try to tell kind of a story. Specially Apples Manuals are all kind of "how do I get the job xy done" manuals. Even if they do not explain each and every command, they give you a very good feeling of how things work. > > The overall structure of one chapter is like this: > > 1. They teach you several concepts, like what's displayed in the > cockpit (incl. screenshots). > 2. Followed by one or two tutorials where you need to use the > concepts learned in the sections before. > > Why not reorganizing our current first parts like this? For example: > > 1. Teach the user about what the main windows in GIMP are. > 2. Tell him how to open new images or navigate and the like. I can imagine that very well. So, we should identify a number of "fields of interest" or "main topics" may be some kind of user profile could help here. Didn't the usability efforts create something like that already? After - and I mean AFTER - we got an idea of what the overall structure of part II should look like, we should reorder the content we already have. That needs to be clustered to the identified main topics. Afterwards we need to make sure that the transitions within each topic are smooth. > > We can adjust the granularity of this. Of course you won't tell a > beginner all the dirty little tricks you can do with GIMP in the first > place. Just rise the level of experience you need with the chapters of > concepts and tutorials. [x] Agreed > > What do you think Axel and the other authors? Axel, I think it will > fit > in nicely in your reorganization :) Yeah, kind of like it. How shall we progress? Suggestion: (one more) 1. Get our hands on the user profiles (if there are any) 2. Identify the relevant main topics (guess we should limit ourself to 10 or less of them) - -> Write a raw description of what should be part of the topic 3. scan through the tutorials and concepts we have today in Part I and II and relocate them one by one to the new topics 4. Identify what's missing in the topics of Part II 5. Write the sexy thing for Part I 6. Fill the gaps in Part II 7. Take a rest :) So, how about that? Greetings, lexA > > Cheers! > -- > Roman Joost > www: http://www.romanofski.de > email: romanofski@xxxxxxxx > _______________________________________________ > Gimp-docs mailing list > Gimp-docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-docs - --- Remember: There are only two tools in life. WD-40, for when something doesn't move, and should, and Duct Tape, for when something is moving and it shouldn't. So does the universe explode if you spray duct tape with WD-40? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (Darwin) iD8DBQFF13fhR9mXLVsAbiQRAsybAJ4vyJpRp473pavqY/cejUgeuqSBogCg3tz/ lf/+wUhPiniPQ2M2XLiFOyA= =aluR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Gimp-docs mailing list Gimp-docs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gimp-docs
