newtoubuntu docs

[Dougie Richardson]

2009/5/6 Joel Goguen <jgoguen at jgoguen.ca>:
> On Wed, 2009-05-06 at 23:07 +0100, Dougie Richardson wrote:
> I would think that input from the Beginners Team would be good mostly
> because they may have already seen some trends.  Not to say that
> everything should come from them, we should do searching too, but if
> they can identify, say, 7 trends right away and point out where they've
> seen it, that's time saved.

I think its valuable to see any recommendations but we need to also be
aware that the forums might not be the same target as those who read
the system help - I have lost track of the number of posts I've seen
asking questions that I know are answered in our system help,
frequently to be answered with a link to another site.

> I definitely agree to take care not to make this a switching guide -
> which removes section 4 - although the two should probably be linked in
> some way.  Perhaps the New To Ubuntu guide links to material in the
> switching guides?  Or if a "Switching From Mac" guide is to be made
> maybe it would be better if the information is all in the New To Ubuntu
> guide and the switching guides link there?  For example, the New To
> Ubuntu guide contains information about the desktop and how it's laid
> out.  The switching guide would link to this section ("for details about
> the desktop, see <link>") and then after that (or maybe before the
> link?) talk about equivalents and differences (the Start menu is
> replaced with the Applications/Places/System menu, the Control Panel is
> basically all under the System menu...).

The desktop should be in the section its in currently. If we have a
number of sections describing the difference between Gnome and other
interfaces then we're not only introducing duplication but increasing
the likelihood that something will be missed when there is a change
and we might not have access to all the interfaces to update prior to
each release.

Oh and especially for any new contributors, we use <xref
linkend="sectionName"/>, <ulink> to other areas of ubuntu-doc is
deprecated.

Regards,

Dougie Richardson
http://www.lynxworks.eu/
dougierichardson at ubuntu.com