Re: documentation suggestions from new user

On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, Brian van den Broek wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> thanks for making Abiword available. I'm new to it, but finding it so
> much lighter and quicker than OpenOffice.

Yay!

> 1) The FAQ page says:
> 2.2 How do I switch to VI or Emacs key bindings?
> Note: This is not recommended for most users. Simply edit your
> ~/.AbiSuite/AbiWord.profile, and find the section beginning with that
> <Scheme "_custom_". Simply add the line keybindings="emacs" or
> keybindings="viEdit" as desired.
> <http://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/problems/problemsfaq.html>

The Abiword.Profile usually/used to include a full list of example keys,
the expectation being that you would copy and change the line
KeyBindings="default"
but if you want to provide a patch to the documentation and attach it to a
report in bugzilla I'm sure it would be accepted.

> b) Information obtained at #abiword was needed to make this work for
> me. I've updated
> <http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/FaqEditorBindings>
> with the info. Perhaps a link to that page in the FAQ entry would be good.

Thanks for clarifying that. We dont get asked about those bindings very
often anymore but I have explained them a few times on the mailings lists
without making the extra effort of including instructions in the FAQ
(Randy Kramer does lots of great work maintaining the Wiki).

> c) It is, I guess, a rare Windows user who will care about emacs
> key-bindings. The Win user interested in emacs and unable to work out
> "~/.AbiSuite/AbiWord.profile" would be even more rare. But, still I'd
> suggest adding a reference to the location of AbiWord.profile on Win32
> systems. On my WinXP box, it lives at C:\Documents and
> Settings\Owner\AbiSuite\AbiWord.profile.

Feel free to add a note to that effect in the Wiki. I forget but on older
versions of windows it is either the "Application Data" data directory or
$WINDIR that gets used. Usually I recommend using the Search tool to find
Abiword.Profile which is a lot more straighforward.

> 2) Reference to the wiki.
> A reference to the wiki
> <http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/WebHome> in one or
> more of:
>
> <http://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/index.html>
> <http://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/problems/index.html>
> <http://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/problems/problemshelp.html>
>
> would be helpful. There may be a reference elsewhere in the docs, but
> these are the three places I expected to find such things as a new user.

I suppose the documentation should point to the website and mention more
up to date information is available on the webiste and in the Wiki.
Documentation can be around for a very long time and users might not have
web access so we shouldn't include too many external links in the
documentation and if you were willing to help update the documentation in
a few places it would be appreaciated (but I think you understand the
Emacs keybindings are not something most users are interested in, I dont
think any of the current developers even use them).

> 3) <http://www.abisource.com/help/en-US/problems/problemshelp.html>
> suggests X-chat as an irc client for those not familiar with irc.

seemed like a good idea at the time. you are right this should be
changed or at least mention better alternatives. Didn't know Gaim could
do IRC, I use Mozilla or obscure command line IRC clients. I dont know if
the free-beer Mirc is still popular but that was what most people I knew
seemed to use on windows.

> Thanks and best,

Patches welcome, or failing that I guess filing bug reports would be a
good idea. Thanks for making the effort to look through all this and I'm
glad you are enjoying using Abiword.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

Inkscape http://inkscape.org
Abiword http://www.abisource.com
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Alan's Diary http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
Received on Thu Jul 14 22:11:11 2005