Thoughts on Using Floss Manuals

Folks,

Was chatting with Rita and Adam on Floss Manuals and had some ideas:

It seems we are trying to solve a number of problems:

1. How do we ensure the complete list of items we want documented are covered?
2. How do we know who is working on what item?
3. How does a new person (or a person who just finished some item) know what items are available to be worked on?
4. We have sections of the book where we have the same content twice
   
5. How do we decide whether to include all information about a item (ex:Playfield) along with its "Common Tiles" and "Special Tiles" in one spot or in seperate chapters/pages.(for why I think this is is important see Notes on Tufte's talk on Galileo's Starry night below)
   
6. How will we organize the book

So some thoughts::

1. Floss Manuals has an INCLUDE feature, where you can include the content of another chapter into a specific spot in the text.
   AdamHyde: %INCLUDE{man.chap}% NOTE: INCLUDES may make attribution easier, need to double check with Adam
   
2. You can have chapters that are NOT included in the final printed/rendered product. (Adam, mentioned how, but it scrolled off my chat window in FM before I could capture it).
3. Finally a warning from AdamHyde: i would say stephen that includes can make things unecessarily complex
   

So my suggestion is that: we selectively use includes to allow us to write Once publish everywhere. This will also allow for easier re-use (especially if we can include chapters from this book in another book. It MAY also make it easier to "import" manual parts into Etoys as part of help within Etoys. Although Rita also made a good point during the Skype call yesterday, we need a hard copy book for people who want to read in the bathroom or look at the description in the book and the screen.

NOTES:
Edward Tufte's talk on Galleo's Stary Night - The first printing of Galeleo's book had the text and images embedded on the same page. In order to save money later printers moved the graphics to pages at the end of the book. See: Links: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00004p His book: Beautful Evidence, or give yourself a real treat and attend one of his one day seminars.

Below is an excerpt from our chat (apologies it scrolled off before I could capture the whole conversation.)

AdamHyde: some strategies

RitaFreudenberg: ok

AdamHyde: there are a few technical issues in fm that effect things

AdamHyde: but i dont think they will be a big issue for this

AdamHyde: we will work it out

RitaFreudenberg: that sounds good!

AdamHyde: :)

StephenThomas: Great, so Adam ar you the Floss expert?

AdamHyde: ok, im off to see a friends band play

StephenThomas: cool

StephenThomas: Thanks

RitaFreudenberg: you know, until now I was thinking about manually copying parts together ...

AdamHyde: stephen - i am the fm founder ;)

AdamHyde: yes

AdamHyde: rita i think that is a good strategy

StephenThomas: Thank you Adam!

AdamHyde: but then we haev to do a few things to make sure attributon is handled

AdamHyde: since coopy and pasting does not copy accorss attribution credtis

AdamHyde: but we can do this

StephenThomas: Rita, I will think about this some more and send an email to the list as it will be a better way to communicate and discuss the idesas

RitaFreudenberg: yes, thats true!

AdamHyde: i can do it on the server

AdamHyde: but lets talk about this when iu are done

RitaFreudenberg: stephen, ok!

AdamHyde: good luck :)

RitaFreudenberg: thanks :)

StephenThomas: Luck = 90% work + 10% creativity

AdamHyde: ahh...i delete those chapters for u first

StephenThomas: Creativity = 90% work

AdamHyde: fm = 1% work, 99% facilitation ;)

StephenThomas: Rita has the hard 99%

AdamHyde: yep! :)

StephenThomas: ADAM the Include command scrolled off my chat

StephenThomas: Can you resend or tell me where I can get a log of these sessons

AdamHyde: %INCLUDE{man.chap}%