Hello Everyone,
We are going to need some basic help files for users fairly soon. If anyone has the time to write some very basic HOWTO information pertaining to BeOS / Haiku, it would be much appreciated. If you’re interested or have questions, please email me at kurtis at zekimedia dot com. Some suggestions are:
Installing a Printer
Setting up my Email Account
Replacing Net+ with Another Web Browser [Mozilla, etc]
Connecting to a Network [BONE / NetServer]
Using SAMBA to Transfer Files on a Network
Using FTP to Transfer Files
Where to find BeOS tools [bebits, beshare, etc]
Office Applications [replacements for MS Word, Excel, etc]
Converting a Document to PDF
etc.
The list of ideas goes on and on. If you can spare the time to write something like these or something similar, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help.
Not sure where I can help. Haven’t been in the BeOS scene for a long time. Kept tabs on all the different “versions” as time passed, but that’s the extent of it.
If anyone is interested in my help, someone needs to help me get back up to speed on what’s going on. With no Haiku to use, it’s going to be difficult for me to document on how to use various aspects of it, won’t it?
I don’t even have BeOS R5 PE installed! Nor a PC to install it on.
What is a good basic system to go with, when installing BeOS R5 PE and/or Haiku? I need hardware specs and details. Not sure what is what in the BeOS realm anymore.
But, I definately think the documentation should be standard HTML. It simple and effective, while also being capable enough to allow you to do things normal text can’t.
There is a new one available, but it’s so new that Google hasn’t crawled it yet (and, of course, the MS search sucks and so I couldn’t find it there, either.)
I would also suggest that this thread should discuss exactly what topics would need to be documented for “newbies.” I’m guessing the first documentation that needs to be written is why a person should be interested in Haiku in the first place? And separate documentation would need to be written for separate audiences: casual non-developer, power user, and developer are just some examples.
The documentation team is in the process of working out an official documentation format for the code, and it will probably be XML (docbook). But newbie help files and developer tutorials are not official documentation. They are resources for people who do not have experience with BeOS / Haiku that can help them get situated and do what they want to do. And the NHFs and Tutorials should be written pertaining to BeOS R5, since we are maintaining binary compatability and the first release of Haiku will basically be a photocopy. If you want to make my life easier, you can write them in html to save me some formatting time =).
At the risk of being flamed, I would suggest following the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications for all word usage, bolding, etc., issues. The manual is available for free from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=B494D46B-073F-46B0-B12F-39C8E870517A
There is a new one available, but it’s so new that Google hasn’t crawled it yet (and, of course, the MS search sucks and so I couldn’t find it there, either.)
I would also suggest that this thread should discuss exactly what topics would need to be documented for “newbies.” I’m guessing the first documentation that needs to be written is why a person should be interested in Haiku in the first place? And separate documentation would need to be written for separate audiences: casual non-developer, power user, and developer are just some examples.
Thanks a lot for that link. After reading through I think I’ll use this guide as a guidline for stuff that I write.
Since we are supposedly part of the wider BeOS community wouldn’t it make sense to use and promote the draft RFC at beunited.org, the “Open Documentation Standard”? It can be found at:
A web developer by profession, I would like to help in any way I can. Since I don’t think I have deep enough programming skills to help with development, this will give me an opportunity to return the favor – the BeOS has given me countless hours of “when computing was fun again.”
I’m interested on writing documentation about Haiku/BeOS so I earn the BeS.O.S. site. I have some interesting tutorials written in spanish, so I can convert them into english easily (but will need correction) and adapt them into the documenation standar.
As kurtis proposes
Installing a Printer: printing in BeOS is delicated, so we better wait to write a tutorial until printing in BeOS improves. Setting up my Email Account: a MDR tutorial can be done. Replacing Net+ with Another Web Browser [Mozilla, etc]: there’s a tip on betips, but can be done. Connecting to a Network [BONE / NetServer]: I have both tutorials on my web, but a net_server one would be more correct. Using SAMBA to Transfer Files on a Network: i have no idea Using FTP to Transfer Files: frontend FTP clients on BeOS are a little buggy, i don’t think a cli ftp tutor would be great… Where to find BeOS tools [bebits, beshare, etc]: there are new initiatives about repositories, so we better wait until they become true Office Applications [replacements for MS Word, Excel, etc]: i don’t use this kind of sw on BeOS… Converting a Document to PDF: I also have a tutorial on my website.
We can discuss this documentacion in a irc channel or beshare in order to create a better documenaction. I prefer to start creating tutorials when the documentation standard will be finished, but i can star some tutorial, what do you think?
I sent Kurtis a StyledEdit document on how to configure Vision …
“This document will walk you through setting up Vision, an IRC client to connect to irc.freenode.net and automatically log-in to Haiku / BeOS related channels.”
I also included a symlink to ~/config/settings with a copy of the final Vision folder, allowing one to simply drag it over.
Nothing else is covered in that document ( Preferences, general useage, … )
edit:
typed and emailed kurtis “Where to find BeOS tools and software: BeBits / BeZip.de” . Part 2 of this document explains what to do when BeBits/BeZip.de returs a 404 broken download link — searching Internet Archive, BeShare|JavaShare|Unizone , Asking the Author, Google.
If anyone wants to look at them, drop me a priv. message or email me.
perhaps some of you ahve already heard about it on beshare but i am using a Developer Edition 2.1 maintain by Fabien Lusseau, and to help him, i have make a PDF document that explain to new user what is Tracker and Deskbar how to:
configure emails account
change menus prefs, scrollbars style and others color things
configure net_server (and what is the different between n_t and Bone)
configure and install a screensaver
change the screen resolution
change the wallpaper and put background into folders
use others things like Mouse, Data Translators and the main goal to configure attributs organisation in each folder
how works and what things do in the Tracker settings window
use workspaces
some usefull keyboard shortcuts like [alt]+shift+k or [alt]+y
unfortunalty, cause DevEd 2.1 is mainly a french distro, this PDF document is in french … perhaps i can translate all this in english and export it in HTML
I am willing to do a German translation for any documentation which is considered “ready for release”.
I would also like to create guides in english and I don’t even think they would need much correction work, but i’m currently BeOS-free because my hard disk crashed and i’m currently booting knoppix whenever i need my computer.
But if you’ve got any translation work for me to do, just PM me.
hhuumm … in fact, everybody now have a broadband connection so why just stay with plain text or PDF files for newbie help ?
As a new user of 3d Studio Max (university), i was looking for some tutorials to help me … and what really helps me is video tutorial.
In BeOS, we have the closely perfect BeScreenCapture so it’s very simple to explain how things works and what do what in real time.
hhuumm .... in fact, everybody now have a broadband connection so why just stay with plain text or PDF files for newbie help ?
As a new user of 3d Studio Max (university), i was looking for some tutorials to help me ... and what really helps me is video tutorial.
In BeOS, we have the closely perfect BeScreenCapture so it’s very simple to explain how things works and what do what in real time.
What do you think about that ?
I certainly don’t have a broadband connection - and I don’t really have any options to get one (nor will I probably for the next 5-10 years) - my CO (telco office) has DSL - but I’m more than twice the maximum distance in order to get ADSL (in fact, I’m so far, I get a blistering 31.2kbps connection maximum)
Cable broadband will never come anywhere NEAR my house… I live in a mountainous region, so Line-of-site wireless is not a very viable option… the closest to broadband I’ll ever likely see is a frame relay/fractional T1 - which will likely cost me a minimum of $300 USD per month if I go that route.
Satellite internet access is a nightmare and has extremely high latency while maintaining approx. $900 USD installation fees and > $60 USD/mo for service which gets the absolute worst reviews on broadbandreports.com
If the area I live in doesn’t have widespread broadband (I live within “commuting” distance to southern california) then it is certainly not as widespread as it might sound…
I hate PDF files - they take forever to download and read, I turn off pictures on some web pages just so I can read their content in a timely manner - I download files from work and take them home just so I can get them…
It’s definitelly painful, and the internet is much less bandwidth friendly than it ever was before.
