Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 20:31:46 -0400 From: Randy Pratt <rpratt@ezwv.com> To: "Doug Young" <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au> Cc: freebsd-docs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: (was) I'm leaving, now something like "anti official docs rant" :) Message-ID: <01051520314606.00373@k6-2.weeble.com> In-Reply-To: <04ac01c0dd8b$f9cb8070$0300a8c0@oracle> References: <01051513051703.00373@k6-2.weeble.com> <04ac01c0dd8b$f9cb8070$0300a8c0@oracle>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tuesday 15 May 2001 18:11, you wrote: > Magic !!!! ..... guaranteed way to reduce the number of "stupid > newbie questions" to a fraction of what it is. That was the original > A couple questions .... I presume the screenshots were captured within > X Windows using something like Gimp ..... if thats the case then how > are the really early stage screenshots eg "Kernel Configuration Menu" > done ?? That's a common question I get. The "screenshots" aren't actually produced in the conventional sense. I used two computers when creating the documents: one for the actual installation and another to document the process. So no, they're not produced in X. Each screen is hand-crafted using Netscape's wysiwyg composer to produce html tables that very closely resemble the installation screens. And yes, it does take a lot of time. Once I had the basic format, its was relatively easy to make modifications. > I'm aware of the "script" thingy, but there doesn't appear to be any > way to use that before first reboot. I've traditionally used actual > photos for documentation & this is OK for hard copy & LAN use but the > size of photos make webpages a bit slow. g "Kernel Config Menu" Exactly. That was one of the reasons for using the html table approach. They are text-based and load very fast. That's important to people who have to pay per-minute charges for net access. I'm switching to the use of images to ease the conversion to sgml. I've tried to take the digital camera images and reduce their size but the quality degrades. I loaded the html table documents in my browser and used XV to capture the frame and crop. To further reduce the image file size, I change the format to 8 bit mode and save as a png image. Most of the images in the new format are 3k to 8k in size (a few larger, a few smaller). Granted, its a bit of work but its been something I could contribute back to the project. Any input you could offer would certainly be appreciated; however, I'm going to "freeze" the document until the sgml is finished. Its too hard to hit moving targets. Randy > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Randy Pratt" <rpratt@ezwv.com> > To: "Nik Clayton" <nik@FreeBSD.ORG> > Cc: <freebsd-docs@FreeBSD.ORG>; "Doug Young" > <dougy@gargoyle.apana.org.au>; "Murray Stokely" <murray@osd.bsdi.com>; > "Jim Mock" <jim@FreeBSD.ORG> > Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2001 3:05 AM > Subject: Re: (was) I'm leaving, now something like "anti official docs > rant" :) > > > There is now a 4.3 version of my "Install Preview" now posted at: > > > > http://people.freebsd.org/~rpratt/43/index.html > > > > There is a series of these dating back to the 2.x release and have > > been > > > linked from the http://www.freebsd.org/tutorials/ page for quite > > some time. > > > I've also created a version for the 4.3 that uses png captures of > > the html > > > tables for purposes of conversion to sgml. These are available at: > > > > http://people.freebsd.org/~rpratt/newprev/ > > > > and in tarball from: > > > > http://people.freebsd.org/~rpratt/newprev/4.3install.tar > > > > I've very grateful to Murray for getting the ball rolling for > > conversion to > > > sgml. It'll make it easier for others to contribute improvements and > > help > > > keep things up to date. Learning the doc project ropes is the next > > task on my > > > list. > > > > I gather from some of the threads I've read on the lists that people > > don't > > > know these exist. Once the documents are reviewed and committed, > > perhaps we > > > should consider some additional links to them. > > > > Randy > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?01051520314606.00373>