Documentation: open user invitation to help out

[Thomas Bullock]

[<<Tom>>: ] Geert, you said:

Here are some examples of how you can help out:

1. You had a particular question that wasn't addressed in the documentation. 
You did manage to solve your question, either by yourself (clever you !) or 
with some help on the mailing list or irc channel.

How to help:
-> Write down what your question was and what the solution was, in a form that 
can be understood easily by others that might have the same question.
-> Submit your write-up to the user mailing list, and I'll gladly add it to 
the gnucash wiki [1] or documentation, depending on where it fits best. If you 
send it to the list, put something like "GnuCash tip" or something in the 
subject, that makes it easier to recognize.

-> Or if you want to help a little more, write your question and solution in 
the gnucash wiki yourself. That costs you a little more time and saves me a 
little more.

2. If you like, you can also help us manage the wiki [1]: improve/update its 
contents and structure, add new contents, extract solutions from mailing list 
discussions and put them in the wiki,... You can spend as little or as much 
time on this as you like.

3. Or if you feel even more engaged, you can also help us improve/complete the 
Concepts guide [2] and GnuCash manual [3]. There are large parts of new 
functionality that are not or poorly documented (reporting is one of them, 
business functions another,...). You don't need coding skills for this, just 
time and preferably some writing skills.


[<<Tom>>: ] thanks for the invitation and the clear summary of ways to get started.

I have wanted to work on item 3 and am currently finding it difficult because I have found little specific instructions on the mechanics of the process used to actually change or add something to the existing documentation.  Yes, I am aware of the information at http://www.gnucash.org/docs.phtml, the GnuCash Documentation project.  For my needs that is too general.  I am too new to linux and GnuCash to have experience on the many fronts needed to be work on something substantive.  The advice I received not too long ago has been to: 

	"Pull out the gnucash-docs from Subversion.  Edit them.  Then run "svn diff" to pull up a patch."

I get the general idea from the above, but I have not much idea at all about the "how-to" steps to make these instructions result in something to submit to the developers' list.

If we had such a step-by-step description, then I think more users could actually respond to the appeal for building current and clear documentation on the parts not yet written.

If you can point me to a place to find what I need, I will be most grateful.  Or if someone can guide me in the process, I will undertake to write the instructions that I know would be helpful, at least to me.

As I see it, the first step is to find the specific web address referred to as Subversion and then the way to find the right module(s) containing the GnuCash-docs.  After that, the next thing is to "pull-out" the docs so that they could be edited.

Any takers to give me guidance so I can do that much?

Tom








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