kicad-doc-devs team mailing list archive

[Jon Evans <jon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Marco,

If we needed to, we could hide the menu entry without changing strings that
would impact translation.

Several people have reached out to help with an updated guide, so hopefully
we will have one anyway...

> information referencing to old commands may still be useful for users
that are used
> to legacy versions that are still orienting themselves through the new
> menu/window/command tree.

I'm not sure I agree with this, it just seems confusing if KiCad comes with
a built-in user manual that
has screenshots and text describing things that don't exist.

This is especially the case now that it is no problem to install multiple
versions of KiCad side-by-side.
A user could refer to the old documentation for the old version, so I don't
think it that useful for the new documentation to be outdated.

Best,
Jon

On Tue, Nov 30, 2021 at 2:09 AM Marco Ciampa <ciampix@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On Sat, Nov 27, 2021 at 05:38:54PM -0500, Jon Evans wrote:
> > As you might know, there is a chapter in the documentation called Getting
> > Started in KiCad [1] which is at this point entirely out of date and does
> > not really cover the modern KiCad workflow.  I have seen many people
> point
> > new users at various video series or posts on the user forum as more
> > accurate and modern introductory tutorials.
> >
> > Since the release of 6.0 is drawing near, we are trying to figure out
> what
> > to do with this chapter.  Right now, I'm just about the only person
> working
> > on updating the documentation for 6.0, and I am focused entirely on the
> > "reference manual" portion of the documentation.
> >
> > I don't personally believe that the reference manual needs to contain a
> > "getting started" chapter in tutorial form, but I'm happy for it to be
> > there **as long as it is up to date and correct**.  Since it is not
> looking
> > possible to do that for 6.0, we are currently planning on removing this
> > chapter from the website and published documentation.
> >
> > So, before we make this call and delete it, I wanted to check: is there
> > anyone who is interested in volunteering to write a new version of this
> > document, covering the very basics of the modern KiCad workflow using the
> > latest nightly builds (pre-6.0)?  I'm happy to assist with formatting and
> > gathering images, and we have a volunteer copy editor to make sure the
> > writing will fit in stylistically with the rest of the manual.  We just
> > need someone who is up for putting in the time to create an outline and
> > then write the content for it.
> >
> > If nobody volunteers for this, we will remove this chapter before 6.0 is
> > released.  We can always add a "getting started" chapter back again in
> the
> > future if someone wants to write it later.
> >
> > If you are interested, please contact me directly.  Thanks!
> >
> > -Jon
> >
> > [1]
> >
> https://docs.kicad.org/master/en/getting_started_in_kicad/getting_started_in_kicad.html
>
> Hi Jon,
> Generally I am not against un-publishing outdated & misleading guides,
> especially if one can re-add an updated version later. But you have to
> un-menu it from the program and actually it is in string-freeze.
>
> I think that a better choice, for the time being, is to add a "program
> version reference" and a warning that _some_ information maybe
> out-of-date in the documentation source.
>
> The program already uses version information to address to specific
> version of the off-line and on-line documentation, and information
> referencing to old commands may still be useful for users that are used
> to legacy versions that are still orienting themselves through the new
> menu/window/command tree.
>
> --
>
> Saluton,
> Marco Ciampa
>
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