[Scribus] Freedom Yug tutorial

[Gregory Pittman]

BandiPat wrote:
> Gregory Pittman wrote:
>   
>> I've done more work on the tutorial version on the Wiki. (pages 8 and 9)
>> Here's the start:
>> http://wiki.scribus.net/index.php/Get_Started_with_Scribus
>> Please check it to make sure it makes sense. I think it's time to make a 
>> link from one of the categories on the main Wiki page.
>>
>> Greg
>> _______________________________________________
>>   
>>     
> Greg,
> I'm going to play spoiler here for a moment.  I know you would expect
> nothing less from me.  :-)
>
> If the tutorial on the wiki was meant for users already familiar with
> Scribus, you might have provided them some help with the tutorial.  If
> you were trying to provide a tutorial for users, new or budding DTP
> users or users that have tried to use the program, you've failed in your
> attempt.  I won't say it sucks like dead rats through a garden hose, but
> it fails to provide the info and sometimes correct info needed to help a
> user learn about and use Scribus.
>
> Knowing Scribus like you do, you probably are/were a bad choice to
> provide a tutorial though.  Simply, because you've forgotten what it is
> like to learn a program of this level of difficulty.  Your abilities
> with the program are probably at a very high level, thus preventing you
> from understanding the things needed to be covered and correctly, for
> early users of the program.  You have to face the fact, Scribus, in it's
> present state is a difficult program to learn and to use.  Many of the
> questions that appear on this list are testimony of that fact.
>   
Actually I don't know Scribus as well as you think I do. I refashioned 
the tutorial by going through the tutorial itself to make sure I 
understood the steps, many of which I had never done before -- I'm not 
coming at this with any kind of background in layout or design. There is 
a certain clumsiness of an online tutorial, in that you are trying to 
flip from one application (the browser) to another (Scribus), which 
doesn't always go easy (speaking from the experience of following the 
tutorial).
One of the things I keep looking for on the list are the questions that 
the totally naive bring up, since these show the holes in the 
documentation, or something about the "findability" of information that 
is already there. I think we're doing considerably better than we have 
in the past. We have gotten some feedback suggesting that students at 
various levels will be or already are using Scribus -- their questions 
will be very helpful to us.
> Believe me when I say, I'm not trying to be rude or overly critical. 
> It's just a tutorial, in my thoughts, is meant to help teach and
> understand the correct use of something.  I don't believe this tutorial
> meets that criteria yet.
>   
One of my comments on the list was wondering whether anyone had 
actually, literally, gone through this tutorial that Niyam had written, 
since I noted that as it progressed the detail got rather sparse in a 
way that would cause a user to lose interest. Yet, on a practical level, 
it's not clear to me that there would be many who go through this 
step-by-step, page-by-page, all the way to the end, since users are not 
in the end interested in making Niyam's booklet, they're interested in 
making their own work. So this will be something to "leaf through", 
perhaps do some bits here and there, but mainly hope to remember what 
sorts of operations are demonstrated to be able to refer to later when 
needed.

And finally, this tutorial is hardly an end-all or be-all. The wiki has 
a number of things that perhaps are more along your suggestions. It's 
why I made the various "Working with..." pages, to simply show where 
various buttons are, how you use this or that requester, and so on. 
These are perhaps the bulk of the questions we see from new users. There 
is an entirely different category of user that is quite familiar with 
layout, design, and publication, and needs something more advanced.

I think we can stand the heat from your comments, just try to shed some 
light along with it.

Greg