Re: A shorter manual

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On Apr 28, 2010, at 8:43 PM, Matti De Craene wrote:

>> - 2.8 Drawers
>> - 3.2 Column width and alignment
>> - 3.3 The Spreadsheet (4 rather technical pages)
>> - 7.4 Property Inheritance and 7.5 Column View
>> (do beginners really need properties at all ??)
>
>
> I would agree on this list (except maybe drawers).
>
> If there is room for additional sections maybe:
> - include the org ref card as an appendix (which in itself offers a
> very good overview of org)
> - include some pointers into getting emacs for different OSes and
> getting started with emacs. If there would be an O´Reilly book on
> Org-mode this would be in the first chapter or so. For people who
> started using emacs because of org (like me) the current Introduction
> might still be too cryptic (?)

Hi Dan, Matti,

I think I agree, just cannot easliy let go of the spreadsheet
as a core feature - you caught me there :-), and you are right, also

I would be very glad to hand over the control over this document
to either of you or to another volunteer.  Maybe then we could
make something really nice out of this experiment - I will not
be able to spend much more time on it....

- Carsten

>
>
> --
>
> Matti
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 7:05 PM, Dan Davison  
> <davison@stats.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>> Erik Iverson <eriki@ccbr.umn.edu> writes:
>>
>>> Carsten Dominik wrote:
>>>> Dear all,
>>>>
>>>> with the Org-mode manual moving toward 200 pages,  I am
>>>> starting to worry that people with stop in their tracks
>>>> when considering Org-mode, just because of the sheer size
>>>> of the manual.
>>>>
>>>> So I did a little experiment.  I took the manual and stripped
>>>> everything which could be considered advanced material, but
>>>> keeping all features and all basic commands and customizations.
>>>>
>>>> What remains are about 50 pages.  A document with the same
>>>> structure (even the same chapter numbers) as the manual.
>>>> I am wondering if it would be useful to have this as a beginners
>>>> document - or if the existence of this document would lead
>>>> to more confusion than relief.
>>>>
>>>>     http://orgmode.org/orgguide.pdf
>>>>
>>>> I don't see this a an alternative for the manual - just
>>>> as an additional, rather static document, with little need for
>>>> updates.  The manual would continue to be the comprehensive
>>>> and constantly updated document.
>>>>
>>>> Comments are welcome.
>>
>> Hi Carsten,
>>
>> I think this would be a good thing to have.
>>
>> It would be good to have active HTML links to the relevant main  
>> manual
>> sections in PDF and HTML versions. (even if this is not encouraged by
>> texinfo format).
>>
>> I'm tempted to suggest going even a little further than you have  
>> done.
>> If you were to make it shorter, I would suggest removing the  
>> following
>> sections, and to replace removed sections with very short non- 
>> technical
>> advertisements for features that are covered in the main manual.
>>
>> - 2.8 Drawers
>> - 3.2 Column width and alignment
>> - 3.3 The Spreadsheet (4 rather technical pages)
>> - 7.4 Property Inheritance and 7.5 Column View
>>  (do beginners really need properties at all ??)
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>>
>>> I think it's a great idea.  The R project has something called "An
>>> Introduction to R" for beginners, separate from the complete manual.
>>> I think that as a beginner, and wondering how to break into  
>>> learning a
>>> new package, that "reading the manual" has certain negative
>>> psychological connotations that "reading the intro document" does  
>>> not,
>>> not the least of which is the length of full manual.
>>>
>>> And since knowing just the basics of org can be immensely  
>>> beneficial,
>>> I think it's even more reason to have a basic intro document.
>>>
>>> --Erik
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>>

- Carsten