Hi list,

Noticed some people said they don't want to contribute to the Lazarus wiki for various reasons.

If those people want to contribute their knowledge and help others with it, there are alternatives, such as the Object Pascal/Lazarus book by forum member motaz (Motaz Abdel Azeem):
http://code.sd/startprog/
(released under Creative Commons license)

IIRC, there was also a French book that discusses Lazarus.

Regards,
Reinier

Essentially the same problem: where to search for existing documentation?

When I was working on docking, I created an blog for the documentation of all problems and ideas. Who will ever find out that this blog may contain requested information, without knowing that the blog exists?

BTW, a blog or forum may be a good place for discussing documentation issues, provided that a systematic search for specific items is possible there, and a link is provided in the Lazarus home page.

DoDi

I don't really see your problem.

What do you mean with "existing documentation"? Link/refer from the book to the wiki and vice versa.

Also - haven't checked - the licenses of book & wiki may very well be compatible, so it would be possible to copy over stuff literally (instead of rephrasing it).

Regards,
Reinier

Okay, so far, but how many documentation sources will be linked, and how to determine which of these links to follow? Scattering information into many places is not a good idea, when it comes to searching for specific topics.

DoDi

Well, I don't know but saying there's more information to be found at http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal would be sufficient... but it's not up to me.

And I DON'T mean to suggest you should write part of a book with links to the wiki all over the place. Otherwise, why write a book ;)

You complained the wiki is a poor format to store help in, so I just wanted to show you an alternative: put your information in a book. That's all.

Regards,
Reinier

The book seems to be written with OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice, that would be difficult to track changes.

leledumbo wrote

The book seems to be written with OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice, that would be difficult to track changes.

OpenOffice (like most office suites) have a "record changes" function. It also supports multiple versions of a document inside a single ODT file. You can also do comparisons between two ODT documents from inside OpenOffice. So there shouldn't be any problem collaborating with others using ODT files.

Trying to do a 'svn diff' might be an issue. Git has a filter that converts ODT files to text before it shows such a diff, so in Git it is not a problem either. I don't know if svn supports such a feature.

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

Trying to do a 'svn diff' might be an issue. Git has a filter that converts ODT files to text before it shows such a diff, so in Git it is not a problem either. I don't know if svn supports such a feature.

If you use tortoiseSVN it does support showing the differences between document files. I was amazed when I first saw and it clearly something new (maybe 1 or 2 years, dont know)

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote

If you use tortoiseSVN it does support showing the differences between document files. I was amazed when I first saw and it clearly something new (maybe 1 or 2 years, dont know)

Oh yes, and it shows them grafically, not as raw text.

AFAIMR, ODF files are essentially compacted XML;

Lukasz

Lukasz Sokol wrote

AFAIMR, ODF files are essentially compacted XML;

Yes, it is actually a zip file. Just rename any odt file to .zip and you can unpack it. It doesn't just contain XML though. If you document has images embedded, then the zip archive contains PNG files too. Embedded sound is probably handled in a similar fashion.

Oh yes, and it shows them grafically, not as raw text.

Now that's something I don't know :)

I suggest convert it to LyX format.

2012/3/2 leledumbo

2012/3/2 Alexsander Rosa :

I suggest convert it to LyX format.

No need really. The newer OpenOffice and LibreOffice also supports the Flattened ODT format (older versions of OOo can install the plugin for this too). That is basically just an XML file (no zip archive like ODT). This makes it much better for version control systems to manage document revisions and patches. I'm not sure how Flattened ODT handles images though, but then again, for any large documents (like a book) it is anyway recommended (think of it as best practice) to link to images, and not embed images.

The problem with "secretary's editors" like MS Word or Open/LibreOffice is that they waste user's time with formatting and other non-content related activities. With LaTeX and derivatives such as LyX, the user is free to be productive. When I was working on my MSc paper, ages ago, I wrote some 40 pages in two months on Word, then converted it to LyX and created 40 more pages in just one week.

2012/3/2 Graeme Geldenhuys

I just aksed for this feature elsewhere, it has been in and out an seems to be in again. Do you now which version is necessary? (My last test was done on 3.0 or 3.2 or so)

I've have to check the version for you when I am back at work on Monday, but I think I have LibreOffice 3.5.0 (not 100% sure though).

I have used LaTeX and OpenOffice many many
published articles and technical papers, project
specifications etc.

I can honestly say, in my experience LaTeX just
made me slower. I had to fight to figure out how
to get certain text to display correctly, because
it was constantly some or other reserved LaTeX
tag some something.

As for OpenOffice. I have created years ago
various templates for all the different type of
documents I need. They are all designed with Styles. So no, I don't have to think about formatting
either, just what is the structure I am currenty
typing, and apply the correct (already available
style to it). My documents are well layed out and
formatted, with very little effort from my end.
I tend to write articles in 2 days (evenings really) and they normally consist of so 11-18 pages.
Writting speed (meaning getting content from your
head to the computer / paper) is not affected by
the editor you use. Well, not in my case. I write
paragraphs as I think of ideas. Then once done,
I go back and rearrange chapters, paragraphs etc
and double click on the relevent Style to apply them.

I guess each writter works differently.

Regards,
Graeme.

_______________________________________________

In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said:

For me it is the other way around. The main reason being if that if I have something in a way that I like, copying it is really easy (even if 1 year later).

With OO I'm always thinking about how I got the effect in that way. In Latex if I have something the way it should look, I at the same time have the way to duplicate it.

I believe that.

You should let latex worry about displaying the text correctly.

If you want everything placed just there with just that width and whatnot, then LaTeX is indeed not your tool, you need a desktop publishing tool.

I type text, and latex makes a layout that is 99% perfect; I really don't care about the last 1%.
I've never been able to achieve the same speed with any wordprocessor.

Michael.

I of course recommend WordPerfect though the Windows version never achieved the same usability as the dos version :)

Andrew

*waits for hail of arrows and stones*

I type text, and latex makes a layout that is 99% perfect; I really don't care about the last 1%. I've never been able to achieve the same speed with any wordprocessor.

I don't see a difference here. In a wordprocessor I define templates which can be applied to every section or paragraph, initially or later.

DoDi

Andrew Haines wrote

I of course recommend WordPerfect though the Windows version never achieved the same usability as the dos version :)

+1000

I've even found the recent Windows versions to be equal to the DOS version.

Ignoring WordPerfect has been one of the biggest mistakes ever of the greater Windows community.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

I type text, and latex makes a layout that is 99% perfect; I really don't care about the last 1%. I've never been able to achieve the same speed with any wordprocessor.

Make no mistake, latex makes beautiful documents (so can OpenOffice), but it is not the layout I have an issue with. My issue with latex is simply to display certain characters. I often have to escape common English characters, so that latex interprets them correctly. This is what slows me down, and what obfuscates the text I am writing - and most importantly, breaks my flow of information. I'm sure with years of latex experience, like you have, those escaped characters and obscure text you need to type to insert a table etc will come naturally.

But the generalization that to create beautiful and complex documents, is only possible when using latex, is just not true. OpenOffice is perfectly capable, with a much lower learning curve. And if somebody doesn't use styles in a OpenOffice document, they are at fault, not the OpenOffice product.

Marco van de Voort wrote

With OO I'm always thinking about how I got the effect in that way. In Latex if I have something the way it should look, I at the same time have the way to duplicate it.

If the "effect" was applied using a Style (which is what you should have used - just like you do in latex), then there is no problem. You can export or copy a specific (or all) style from one document to another.

latex comes with well defined styles out of the box. OpenOffice also comes with styles out of the box - though not very well designed (from a typographical point of view). Like I mentioned. I created well designed styles and various document templates using those styles. So I just double click the template for whatever document I want to write (chapter, article, news letter etc) and away I go.

I didn't mean to state that either. I just wanted to say that for me personally, LaTeX works best.

I 100% agree with your statement about using styles, but will make the observation that 99% of all people I know does not know/use them in either MS-office or OO, and uses hand-crafted layout. Latex applies the styles automatically, which is one of the reasons I forced it on the help writers here in the company.

Anyway, enough about wordprocessors :)

Michael.

See my response to Graeme.

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

Latex applies the styles

automatically, which is one of the reasons I forced it on the help

writers here in the company.

Technically, in is not done automatically. You have to tell latex that you are working on a chapter, section, subsection etc. You also have to tell it which type of document you are working with, so the correct styling can be applied. That's exactly the same as in OpenOffice when you double click on a style (but without having to escape English text characters). ;-)

But, like you educating your office, I like to educate people to use OpenOffice (also applies to other products) correctly by using styles. It's just a matter of them changing some habits.

Anyway, enough about wordprocessors :)

+1. :-)

Graeme.