pitivi-manual-0132-alphaI have spent approximately 15.6 hours (in the past week or so) writing a new user manual for PiTiVi. By hand. With a pen and paper during boring meetings. And then converted it to the digital medium with my awesome dvorak typist skills.

The result can be seen in PDF here as a preview (temporary place). The source file is also available if you want to make some extensive edits.

Please take a look, provide suggestions/comments, etc. This manual is geared towards PiTiVi 0.13.2 rather than 0.13.1, so it even documents nonexistent features (such as tagging/filtering in the sources list).

I typeset it using OpenOffice Writer, because:

  • I want a manual that looks good, modern, professional, unique. So far, the best-looking software manuals I’ve seen are monolithic PDF files.
  • I’m much, much faster and efficient with Writer. Hey, if I could typeset a whole 10-20 pages journal in an hour with it, it sure isn’t so bad?
  • LaTeX is not an option. I don’t want to fight with it. This manual is too design-centric.
  • Docbook gets in my way (much more xml tags than contents!), and, so far, the manuals I’ve seen in GNOME apps feel a bit… odd. When looking at them, I somehow get lost, I don’t feel a clear sense of hierarchy or chronology/gradual learning. That’s subjective of course. Maybe I just didn’t spend enough time actually using Yelp. Maybe I’m crazy.

Anyway. Take a look at this manual. See if it’s any good.