Re: Feedback wanted on a ConTeXt tutorial

[Mari Voipio <mari.voipio@iki.fi>]

Hi!

On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 8:50 PM, Thangalin <thangalin@gmail.com> wrote:
> - The introduction paragraph can be shortened. For example, tell the
> reader to "try the subsequent examples using ConTeXt Live web page"
> (as opposed to 'almost all of the examples in the series can be run
> online'). On any example that does not work, indicate such at the
> time.

Darn, I forgot to change this one - I found that the sample graphics
are found by ConTeXt Live, so *all* examples this far work online. I
aim at keeping things that way. I'm not that happy with the intro
anyway, your sentence is a lot more beautiful than mine. :-)


> - Avoid using abbreviations and jargon.

I thought I had, but obviously not enough. Will have to do a jargon
check all over - I write one chapter at a time so minor discrepancies
can be expected at this stage.


> As Marco noted, why not apply such wonderful effort to the wiki?

Because my idea is to make a document that allows one to start from
the beginning and doing the examples in the order given. I used the
wiki a lot to check on stuff, but it is not quite the same thing - and
wiki's "second document" is already a real jump start to ConTeXt, I
want to introduce things slower.

I will try to improve the wiki when I stumble on problems. E.g. within
last three days I've looked up half a dozen commands that are not on
the command reference index (the longer one) even though they have a
page of their own, e.g. \externalfigure (not on
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Category:Commands but has a page at
http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Command/externalfigure). If the index is
generated manually (as it seems), I can edit it and add missing
commands on the go when I find them.

I must admit that I find it a bit scary to edit the wiki; I'm always
worried about messing up with somebody else's work - with this
tutorial project I can only mess up with my own text and mostly I can
live with that. Editing the wiki I think that everybody else must know
better than I do, for my command of ConTeXt is fairly basic, so I
can't see my solutions being better than those already existing. Thus
I rarely log in to edit, except with failing links and other small
issues.


How should I phrase this? The wiki is like an encyclopedia, I look up
stuff (more often than not with find) that I need for each case. My
aim is to make something like a novel or a book used for learning the
basics of a foreign language, introducing new things gradually.



Thank you for your time and comments!


Mari
___________________________________________________________________________________
If your question is of interest to others as well, please add an entry to the Wiki!

maillist : ntg-context@ntg.nl / http://www.ntg.nl/mailman/listinfo/ntg-context
webpage  : http://www.pragma-ade.nl / http://tex.aanhet.net
archive  : http://foundry.supelec.fr/projects/contextrev/
wiki     : http://contextgarden.net
___________________________________________________________________________________