DRAFT

Scenario 3 (Start from scratch under ALV2 License), even being difficult gives the chance to do it on a different way than all previous documentation efforts: AOO is a highly integrated suite with lot of stuff in common on all apps so, if done right, starting from scratch can provide a flexible framework that will make document maintenance more easy.

This child page for "User Guides Revisited" is an attempt to think about this new structure for user documentation.

Basics plus examples

We can start from the very basic, highlighting common features between all apps. The very beginning for the user guides should talk about those common features and how handle them and only when the basis are set, provide examples for each app.

General description for UI elements

Menus
Toolbars
Dockers
...

Each entry with a sublevel on how to use and customize them. Once the generalities are provided, it's time for examples. Those examples need to go from the general to the particular: after all, the default Standard toolbar is almost the same on all AOO apps.

How everything works

A "theoretical" comparison between direct formatting and styles, and why stiles are preferred.

A description of what templates are and why they are useful. Highlight the fact that on AOO makes extensive use of styles.

Quick examples of style and template definition on main AOO apps (Writer, Calc, Draw/Impress)

Now, to the detail

With that background, it is now possible to start with each app documentation. At this point it will be a lot easier to explain how stiles work on Writer (the next stile/linked with/etcetera property) or any other app.

Task oriented documentation

A common scenario implies working on several components at the same time. It is now the moment to explain how to transfer data from one app to the other (OLE, DDE links...), how to work with a chart on Calc or Writer, how to pick data from databases...

Advanced features

Graphite fonts
Master documents
Mail merge
…

Anything else?