Documentation WAS: RE: FW: Project Independence - Tried it, and I like it so far. :-)

["Sharp, Lee" <Lee@PeakUSA.com>]

>About documentation: we put great efforts in including user friendlier
>tools for common tasks but what use if the guy will look in a book or
>ask in a news group and he will be told: "Use mutt, pine, elm".
>Curses-based software that will cause bad impression on non hackers.
>And our additional stuff goes unused.  :-(

   My plan was to make install and initial setup so easy, no one ever
has to RTFM.  I want it just like Windows docs, in that the first time
you do something, up pops a help window with a tutorial button, and a
checkbox to make it go away.  The first step is making it so that no one
needs to buy a book to install it.  This means lots of hints and
defaults in the install process.  Make it so that a functional <if a bit
crappy> install could be done by doing nothing but hitting return...
   Then, when you log in as root the first time, have a one line telling
you how to start X.  Once KDE comes up <we will have to specify one for
all the help files, so I am picking arbitrarily...  And KDE is a bit
easier on the beginner.> have it autolaunch the "KDE Help On-line Help
Browser."  Only in our install, we rename main.html KDEmain.html, and
put our own main in.  It would have choices like "Take a tour of the
desktop and how to use the windows" pointing to the KDEmain.html, and
"Learn basic system administration, such as how to add new users"
pointing to our own Autodocs dir, and so on...  This Autodocs dir should
be root level on the CD, so that new users can brows it before install.

>So it would be good if you could look at the additional material we
>included and could write a little text: telling "For this task you can
>use this and this plus (for KDE users) this other program" and then
>give some short descriptions.

   This would be in the Autodocs.  As an HTML based doc system, it is
also cross platform, and postable to the web.  And every idiot can use
the web. :-)  As a system, it also allows for quick changes, upgrades...
 When we make an update package, it can also update the related autodocs
on a users system.  My only limitation will be that I may have to learn
a few of these tools. :-)

			Lee