[Ardour-Users] best of both worlds

[Tim Mayberry]

On 8/25/07, m.eik michalke <m at openmusiccontest.org> wrote:
> hello,
>
> i was wondering who's in charge of the manual? the contribution draft could
> use some information whom to contact, after all ;-)

There is no particular person in charge of the manual, as it is
located in the source code repository any contribution needs to go via
someone with commit access.

There is already an issue in the bug tracker about the contribution
section(1463) but I'll add contact details to it today.

> actually i was searching for a pdf, as some people did before me, obviously.
> bsbdeb posted one made from the html version on the web lately:
>  o http://ardour.org/node/1188

That looks like what you would get if you processed the manual without
"chunking" it into separate pages using xsl and saving it to a pdf in
a browser. Setting up a make target to build the manual so that it was
just one big html page is very easy to do if people want that.

>
> i tried dblatex to convert the docbook sources directly, but unfortunately
> that didn't work, so i imported its plain text into LyX. it took some time,
> but even if the manual is far from complete, i really think it's useful to
> have a printed version flying around in your rehearsal space, sonic
> laboratory, whatever. if you prefer paper, too, you might like this one:
>  o http://reaktanz.de/stuff/ardour_manual.pdf
>    (some hyperlinks are still missing, and the code parts need some
>     adjustments, too; but it's fairly representing the state of the online
>     version)
>
> as long as creating pdf from docbook is not implemented, i'm offering to
> maintain this pdf version, if someone informs me about changes somehow. and
> given that anyone finds this as useful as i do...

A pdf version should not need to be maintained, it should just be
generated from the docbook source and any help implementing it would
be appreciated but it isn't a priority(at least for me)

It is easy to see what changes have occurred to the manual using subversion.

> i have some additional questions and suggestions to make, but first i'd like
> to learn who's to address :o) and of course, i'm open to suggestions as well.

I'd say the developer list is the best place for that.

Tim.