Ok, I see that Boonex has set up an area for people to contribute to the instructional manual. But it is woefully empty.
When I visit the forums, there are HUNDREDS, THOUSANDS of postings where people are asking questions that could be answered in an instructional manual, or a trouble shooting manual.
Give someone free copies of the software, (as a form of payment) if they will go through and categorize the types of trouble shooting issues begin to transfer that information to the User Manual area.
You guys could really save everyone alot of time if the main issues of installation, management, trouble shooting, etc… were dealt with.
For example, I want to delete fields from my join form, but there are no red X’s, no features by which to delete these fields?! I can either resent the whole form or stick with it as it is. Perhaps I’m missing something. An instruction guide could deal with this.
Even making php changes could be clarified by pasting the code into an instruciton manual page, and even including screen shots.
HEED THIS WARING - if Boonex wants to become widely used and recognized like other popular open source software… it must spend some time creating necessary documentation - BECAUSE - of the type of program it is. This is like having a program with options like Gimp.. but having no documentation to show the user how to do the bulk of features on the program. It makes no sense. If it was a small program that did a few things, then fine, let it go without documentation until things get really stable. But Dolphin is far more complicated than even a popular utility like Firefox, or Audacity (common open source applications). Now that they are getting into versions 6.003 were Dolphin is stable and professional looking, its time to do the the less interesting stuff and invest in documentation.
If the documentation is NOT there, only the brave and the programmers will ever touch Dolphin. Teach people how to use your software with Documentation and user guides… and far more people will get on board.
JMG
Make Meaning Or Die
I totally agree that this needs to be done. How you compensate or how it is worked out is up to the Dophin Team but its needs to be done.
Even when somebody puchases the software right now unless you are expreamly tecnical and even then you have to spend way to much time going through the forms to figure out how to do things.
Just about every software package comes with a manual and so should Dolphin.
I would help them with anything if a free license was involved
Unfortunatly I can’t even get access to the devzone
That’s one of the problems of putting out a good piece of software with as many features for free. More time is needed on the code rather than the documentation. The Boonex products are obviously kick Azzz or we wouldn’t be hanging out and posting here imho. I also believe this is where the community part is suppose to kick in. I have to give a thumbs up on the websites and software that boonex provides. There will always be growing pains and yes the documentation is scattered, so they would definitely benefit from having a more formal manual for their products.
I plan to produce some things for my users and I will be happy to provide them for free to anyone interested. I just don’t want to bump heads with the establishment here. In other words I want to provide help, and resources without having people feel like I’m trying to take business away from Boonex and it’s contributers.
I also can’t get access to the devzone, but I’ll try again when I have something to contribute. I’d help for free, because they already gave me something for free, now I have to do my part.
-Peace.
I completely agree. For the record, to delete fields from the join form, click the Edit icon next to the field, and then select “Invisible.”
Oh, never mind — that doesn’t actually work, because the fields are still required despite being invisible, and it seems impossible to make any field non-required!! >_<