This document is a semi-ambitious attempt to create something quite different in technical documentation. The aim is to give the reader a new and different way of learning about a software program, but also using the very tools of the program - while it is being developed to create this modest tome. This documentation is ideally in printed form and also in electronic form using the features of the freely available Adobe Acrobat Reader.
That I am writing this at all is a perfect example of chance in life. Maybe, even worthy of a little story. On the suggestion of a friend in IT, I started tinkering with Red Hat Linux in a part time attempt to broaden my world beyond desktop PC's. When one explores a new world, one often looks for things which are common with the old, even if just for comparison. So, once I discovered Gnome and KDE and even learned how to compile programs, I thought this is not so difficult.
A quick hop on Google, yielded a home page with Scribus 0.3.6, a Quark-like DTP program which had just started to be developed. So, download, do the ./configure bit and splat: Scribus won't compile. I fire off a quick e-mail with the gobbly-gook error message I had yet to understand and surprisingly just 20 minutes later a polite reply explaining the error of my ways. Good sign...
A few e-mails later over the course of a few weeks, Scribus had a documenter who had very little understanding of application development, nor how to write even the most basic html. However, I knew and liked desktop publishing and had that sixth sense Scribus was and could be something really special.
In the open source world, there are some great programs which are wholly lacking in any kind of documentation. There are also great programmers who are abysmal at documenting things. (Franz despite having English as a second language is excellent at explaining things.)
Thus, the following, is my modest attempt at adding some help to a great program.
More to come...