Artworks 2 printed manual interest sought

Dead tree versus CRT phosphor?

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IME, paper manuals are a hell of a lot easier to work with than electronic ones. It means you don't have to shuffle windows about to get at the information you need. More importantly, you can write in paper manuals little gems you find on newsgroups or mailing lists - this is a bit tricky with electronic manuals, especially if they're PDFs. Now then, who's going to print me a full set of new PRMs? jmb on 8/10/03 11:08PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Erm, this isn't really a printed manual, is it? IC/MW aren't planning to give this away for free, are they? It's a book about Artworks, a la a Peachpit Visual Quickstart guide. For a decent price, it's a great idea. A resurgent RISC OS platform needs books. JessFranco on 8/10/03 11:22PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I agree. Why hasn't anyone written 'RISC OS for Dummies' yet? Oh year, cos it's easy to use! We need to see more books for newer users though about the more intricate details of RISC OS, inparticular programming and how to do it on RO. Seeing as the PRMs a little out of date now this would seem to be a good market. -- Smiler - Alex Melhuish Smiler on 9/10/03 7:18AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

"RISC OS for Dummies, .. advocacy for the rest of us!" piemmm on 9/10/03 8:00AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The trouble with writing a book is that programmers tend to make it simply a version of the Help manual. Far too often we find manuals of programs are just a listing of the icons, windows and mouse clicks. When it should also be full of plenty of examples on how to do common tasks and how to fix errors that may happen. quatermass on 9/10/03 9:14AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I agree with Quatermass. What we need is something that tells us how to achieve particular results - not just detailed explanation of each of the menu items. Plenty of worked examples. librarian16 on 9/10/03 10:48AM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The problem with producing a book is the same as many problems within RiscOS. That of cost. Getting a book professionally printed and bound is quite expensive. Every few people would be able to afford that sort of money unless they had guarenteed sales. Col1 on 9/10/03 1:18PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Of course that last sentence should read: Very few people..... D'oh! Col1 on 9/10/03 1:19PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

As someone who’s worked in book publishing as an editor, one thing books are is comparitively cheap to print - even in modest print runs. As digital print-on-demand press begin to rival litho for sheer quality, even the need for a print run subsides. One thing a computer book needs is lots of ‘demonstrations by example’, great editing, and a flawless index. O’Reilly make exceptionally well-written and indexed books. Peachpit’s Visual Quickstarts are useful alt-manuals. Some very big publishers are guilty of turning out some practically useless slop however. JessFranco on 9/10/03 3:28PM [ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

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