Documentation

[David T.]

Um, yeah. My point is that the developer pool would like help with documentation, and most users would be happy to do that, if it matched their mental model on how to edit documents. For most of us (even more advanced types with years of professional editing experience), that model is more based on the word processing editing model rather than the programmer's version control system. Installing Eclipse, and then spending time installing the add-ins, and then on top of all that learning how to use it, is much more complicated than opening a file in a Word processor, turning on "Track Changes," typing in your replacement text and sending it in for review.

As wonderful as version control systems might be (and I am sure they really are), there is (for me at least) one hell of a learning curve--one that precludes my being much more than a commenter on Bugzilla bugs for documentation.

David

P.S.: Over the years, I have installed Eclipse at different times on different platforms in the (clearly misguided) hope that I might learn how it works. Thus far, it has eluded my abilities to understand. Similarly, I earlier today followed John's instructions elsewhere on this thread, and installed TortoiseGit and Git for Windows, but was unable to find an entry point to editing the GnuCash documents that made any sense to me.


________________________________
 From: Frank H. Ellenberger <frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com>
To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>; John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> 
Cc: GnuCash development list <gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2013 11:37 AM
Subject: Re: Documentation
 

Hi David,

Am 11.12.2013 19:22, schrieb David T.:
> John—
> 
> I’ll note that the GnuCash website Writing Documentation page, and it
> still includes all the information that scared David C. away (me too,
> I’ll add). Moreover, the directions there are all svn-based. Is there
> a clear and simple outline of the git process for documentation that
> us non-programmers can daily follow? 

You could also try this:
Install Eclipse from eclipse.org - it is java based.
Inside install the following plugins:
EGit for git access
VEX, a visual XML editor
optional CDT, the C Developement Tools, to run the autotools
- make etc. - inside Eclipse.

Help us to improve the related wiki pages: GIT, Eclipse, ...
by reporting the problems occuring in a fresh install.
Ask here or quicker on IRC


To date, I have avoided the
> DocBook cycle in favor of placing my corrections into comments on
> Bugzilla and relied on others to migrate my edits into the actual
> documentation. If there really were a simple method for editing, that
> functions more like a word processor rather than a programming
> platform, it might broaden the documentation team.
> 
> David
> 

~Frank