pdf manual (1 Viewer)

[citizenkeys]

has anyone considered doing a pdf version of the manual? xbmc has one and it's always been helpful for me.

this seems like it should go in the "jobs/tasks @ mediaportal" forum, but i can't see any way to add a thread for it there.

i'd be interested in helping with getting a pdf manual done. a simple first version would be to do a printer-friendly of the wiki pages and print them all to a single pdf file. some simple "@media print" in css would make the wiki pages instantly printer-friendly.

doing a printer-friendly version makes it easier to do more graphical explanations, like the simple one-page xbmc remote control button explanation (shown in picture).

if anyone wants to assist with this, let me know. maybe we could also get a documentation thread going in the "jobs/tasks @ mediaportal" forum.

 

[rekenaar]

Hi there

I moved it to the wiki section.
Maybe High can help with some pointers?
I know there was a pdf version a year or two ago, but not sure what happened to it.

 

[citizenkeys]

lets get started on this:
* if the wiki pages have a printer friendly, let me know. if not, please do that via css.
* once we have printer-friendly wiki pages, i'll print them out as a batch to a single pdf file.

as a single comprehensive pdf file, i'd like to get the FAQ and skin editing guide in there as well.

i'd also like to write a section on real-world setup that includes instructions for some of the more useful add-ons, like:
* ffdshow tryouts
* schedulesdirect plugin
* adding channel logos
* milkdrop
* myrefresh

 

[high]

hi, if you check the "More Actions:"-box below the blue line you can find a "Print view" option. You will even find a "CreatePdfDocument"-option where you can create a pdf from that specific page.

It cant create a full pfd-file from all pages as this would include every page and would be pretty unstructured. Thats still a manual job.

 

[citizenkeys]

i can print them all out as a single pdf on my end.

this will get done within the next few days.

 

[citizenkeys]

I did all the manual pages in print view as a single pdf.

A couple manual suggestions for the wiki:
* Get all the glossary entries and tips on a single page each. A single page for each tip and glossary entry seems excessive.
* Do a remote control navigation image like the picture above (which is in the xbmc manual).


(File was submitted to files archive and is pending approval.)


Next documentation project is the skinning guide.
After the skinning guide, I intend on re-formatting the guides to be more reader-friendly.

 

[tourettes]

I did all the manual pages in print view as a single pdf.

Are you also planning to keep the PDF files up to date? MediaPortal wiki is updated pretty often.

 

[citizenkeys]

to be honest, i think that wiki is quite cluttered.
i find a pdf to be much more useful than a wiki for manual-type documentation.
after printing the manual to pdf, i found myself reading pages of the documentation that i never would've bothered to click around to read in the wiki.

i vote to simply abandon the wiki. from a management standpoint, it's just too much of a hassle.

alternatively, it would not be difficult to do some sort of cron script to print the manual pages to pdf, combine them into a single pdf, and replace any existing pdf of the manual. then we could have the best of both worlds.

even if the manual were only updated, say, once a month then it would still be somewhat accurate and "good enough" for most people's uses.

does one person need to be designated to manage the manual? why not just make it available in html/word so that anyone can edit it. i'm probably going to need to get the thing in html/word format anyway just to format it more reader-friendly and add a front cover to it anyway.

i still think using html's named anchors to keep the FAQ entries, glossary entries, and tips/tricks all on a single page each is much better than having each faq, glossary entry, tip on its own page.

 

[citizenkeys]

...not a single comment? or thank you? or even posting the file? nothin'?

 

[high]

it is approved, just takes a little longer if there is no description uploaded Many thanks for your work on it!