On 7 February 2011 09:53, Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com wrote:
On 7 February 2011 09:24, Russell Dickenson russelldickenson@gmail.com wrote:
On 7 February 2011 03:00, Frank Lanitz frank@frank.uvena.de wrote:
Hi,
Sorry for the late coming back. Somehow I missed this mail ...
On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:08:15 +1000 Russell Dickenson russelldickenson@gmail.com wrote:
I think this is a *great* idea and am willing to volunteer as a member of the newsletter team.
Cool. Great to hear.
I'm happy to "give it a go" and will let others judge my work. My time is rather limited at the moment but I believe I could make a useful contribution. I speak (and write) only English, I'm afraid, so I couldn't contribute to translations in any way.
As we should start in English, a native speaker could be a great help beside of contributing content also on spell checking, grammar and stuff.
I'll do my best. :)
In thinking about the format, I wonder if a blog-style format might be better than a regular newsletter. I say this only because a newsletter can be delayed solely because one item is not quite ready. I am the author and editor of the Frugalware Linux newsletter, so I have some experience in this area. For the moment I'll await further details and team members. :)
Well, I'm not sure how this could look like. Can you give a more detailed exampled?
For examples of "my" work for Frugalware Linux, look here - http://www.frugalware.org and click on the links in the newsletter announcements.
Thats the sort of thing I imagined when Frank raised the possibility. (but larger type please)
Good. I agree that larger type is desireable, given that my eyes are aging. :) Some CSS changes were made on the Frugalware web site and I agree that the new type size is a little too small.
The question is: in what format would people like to see the newsletter published? The Ubuntu newsletter is published as a weekly email, for example. The Frugalware Linux newsletter is published on a web site in HTML format. Personally I would prefer that the newsletter's content be hosted on a web site instead of sent out via email. The hosted method makes it easier to correct errors which may occur occasionally. Of course we could announce the latest newsletter in the usual Geany ML(s).
+1 for website, then I can't delete it and an archive can be kept in case it contains stuff that lasts beyond this month.
Thanks.
Which actually would be a good idea, Geany has a fair bit of "hidden" functionality and a "function of the month" exposing functions of Geany that people tend to forget would be good, I know I keep (re)learning new shortcuts.
And a "Plugin of the month" too :-)
I agree. A feature/plugin focus of the month would be useful. I know that it takes me a while to get to know an application like Geany well. Focusing on a particular feature would make the learning process easier for people like me. As someone who likes to tweak configuration settings, hints on these topics would also be useful I believe.
Right now I started to put some content together into a LaTeX-file which will be compiled to PDF and plain text and send out later once its done.
Would you mind sending the finished product to me?
A question to Frank and others - do you mind in what format the newsletter's content is written in? I only have experience in using HTML and AsciiDoc (http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/). I would *much* prefer to use AsciiDoc because it "is a text document format for writing notes, documentation, articles, books, ebooks, slideshows, web pages, man pages and blogs. AsciiDoc files can be translated to many formats including HTML, PDF, EPUB, man page." I know that there are similar tools such as "plain text" markup languages but AsciiDoc is the one with which I have most experience.
-1 for Latex, I know Frank is a Latexpert but they are a bit thin on the ground, so having to do contributions in Latex would be limiting (or would require Frank to do lots of conversion, and we want him to have more time for other things :-).
Yes. Sorry, but I not likely to contribute if I have to learn something like Latex. It's not something I'm using now, nor likely to use any time in the near future so I'm simply not motivated to learn it.
As an occasional Asciidoc contributor I hate to say this but...
Perhaps the project should stick to one markup language? Geany's documentation is done in reST, a part of Python's docutils which is used to produce the Python docs. (see http://docs.python.org/documenting/index.html ). reST is a "lightweight markup language" quite similar to Asciidoc and as you can see from the Geany help file produces HTML (and others too IIRC).
That's the one I was trying to think of! Thanks, Lex, for reminding me. I included AsciiDoc only as an example. I don't want to complicate things too much so would be happy to use reST. I currently use AsciiDoc for other projects but I see no reason to try to force it upon other people when a similar tool is already in use and doing its job well.
Personal comment, I moved from reST to Asciidoc because I prefer its source and its output, but the difference in the source isn't huge so I doubt Russell will have much difficulty.
Perhaps you don't know me too well. :P Seriously though, I'm confident I could handle reST.
Assuming we were using AsciiDoc, we could have a master document which then draws in content from various contributors and is then converted to various formats. This method would make the job of the newsletter's editor a little easier since each piece can be edited separately, then combined into one document.
Anything that simplifies the process is good if it reduces the time required of the editor and contributors. This leads to more contributions and more regular publication.
I'll look into options available via reST. Even if it doesn't offer a "master document" option natively, I'm sure a custom solution could easily be created.
Cheers, Frank
Thanks for your reply.
Another question to everyone - since I am the only person to have volunteered so far I'm putting my thoughts out for everyone to read. Am I going too far in suggesting formats and tools?
Since it seems to be only you and Frank ATM both of you need to be happy about the tools.
I'm happy so far. :P I just want to make sure people don't see me rushing into this, forcing my opinions onto others.