Re: question about RMB

[Jeff Waugh <jdub aphid net>]

Dan Mueth said something along the lines of:

> As Malcolm points out, this comes down to the issue of audience.  For most
> GNOME documents, we target the "average" user and try to do so in such a
> way as to not alienate people who are somewhat above or below average.


Maddog: "Don't worry about the 400 million PCs out there, there are 6
billion people on the planet - worry about the other 5.6 billion."

:D


> I think we really need two introductory documents.  One targetted at
> Windows/Mac converts which points out differences with GNOME - perhaps
> simply "Introduction to GNOME".  It would be nice if this would be
> readable by the average Windows user (read "it can be read in an ammount
> of time which a Windows user considers acceptable.  5 or 10 minutes?") 
> We could use a seperate document targetted at the person who is completely
> new to computers altogether


I think, to a point, these documents could be lumped together. An
introduction to the ways of Gnome, and a cross-reference at the back for
people trained on legacy systems.

The document need not be wide-reaching - we don't need to explain ext2 and
inodes... probably just "Where has my C: drive gone?!?" (Perhaps a FAQ-style
cross-reference could cover these problems well, and I'm sure there's a few
documents out there already that cover some of the questions we'd need to
answer.)

Essentially it could be a "What is all this stuff on my screen, what does it
do, and where can I read more about it?" document, linking to the longer
guides in other documents.


> although I really don't know how many people
> go from never using a computer directly to using GNOME.


This will happen more and more often, so we ought to be prepared for at
least some of the questions soon.

I have an example of someone starting with Gnome - without a very limited
operational knowledge of computers - from a bookshop I sysadmin for. She was
put in front of a makeshift (el cheapo) 586 X terminal with Gnome for
running Abiword and random bits and pieces... and now she's addicted to
gnomecal (of all things - okay, so I'm an evil admin and didn't put any
games on).


When I finish the Sawfish capplet docs - why didn't anyone warn me?! ;) -
I'd like to help out with some of this.

- Jeff


-- jdub aphid net ----------------------------------- http://slug.org.au/ --

        Ye shall be cursed to fall in love so easily, and yet be so
                     cold of heart as never to express it.