Re: about coders, docs and users
On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 12:24:31PM EDT, Rado S wrote:
> =- cga2000 wrote on Thu 17.Aug'06 at 16:01:06 -0400 -=
>
> > I can't think of a better wording but what would have helped me
> > tremendously -- and still would.. is a "User Guide".
>
> Be patient and hopeful ..
[..]
Thank you very much for your comments.
The reason I jumped in on this thread was that as a comparatively new
user, I thought that my personal feelings reagarding mutt might be of
some interest to the community.
As I mentioned earlier, the absence of a solid task-oriented manual --
referred to earlier as a "User Guide", is one particular area where I
found that mutt was somewhat lacking.
An albeit trivial illustration of my point is this embarrassing little
problem I had "moving an entire thread" to another folder that recently
caused me to post to mutt-user.
Interestingly, after Patrick Shanahan pointed out the solution .. I
couldn't wait to learn more, so I searched the manual and eventally
found it documented .. under "using tags" ..
Not at all where I expected.
Perhaps it would make better sense if together with other related tasks,
this particular technique were described in a spot more obvious to your
average user .. under something like "Managing your Folders" for
instance ..?
Likewise, considering how important it is to be able to retrieve a
particular message based on vague memories of its subject or its
contents, a chapter such as "Searching your Folders" would also probably
make sense (?) ..
Generally speaking, there is probably a fairly large number of domains
of activity that could be discussed from a user standpoint -- as opposed
to the current mutt manual's approach where the accent is mostly on
individual functionalities.
Even the "Getting started" chapter turns out to be mostly an enumeration
of all the features of one particular domain rather than something that
really focuses on bringing users up to speed.
And when I say speed, I really mean speed.
I am not thinking in terms of one of those tutorials that quickly walk
you through the extremely basic use of the program. That's what I tried
to express by using the "User Guide" formulation since many of the
tutorials I have come across only tell your what you would have figured
out yourself anyway.
The "User Guide" I had in mind would probably end up containing most of
the information in the current manual but presented from a completely
different standpoint.
Since it appears that there was some misunderstanding in this respect, I
should also mention that I am quite comfortable editing configuration
files -- and I rather enjoy "experimenting" with .muttrc stuff until I
get one particular aspect of mutt to do what I want.
But then, this is not really difficult: after all, these are
circumstances where you have already decided what you want to achieve..
so you code something in your .muttrc .. fire up mutt .. get an error
message .. or mutt doesn't quite do what you expected.. so you head
back for the manual .. fix your .muttrc .. post to mutt-user if you're
stuck.. etc. back and forth until you get it to "work".
I am confident that this approach comes naturally to most mutt novices
since most of them are already intermediate to advanced computer users
and almost inevitably the "hacking" kind to begin with.
On the other hand, _using_ mutt to its full potential strikes me as
considerably more difficult because apart from vague notions such as
doing things more rapidly and efficiently .. you don't have a clear
picture where you're headed.
It's no longer just a question of getting something in mutt to work.
It's a matter of getting mutt to work for you.
Quite a few times, over these last few months I've had this nagging
feeling that I would be a much better (and contented) mutt-er if only I
could peek over the shoulder of a few experienced users for a couple of
hours.
Well, just my two cents & I hope this will give you some idea of where
I'm coming from.
Oh.. Naturally, my intent was _not_ to flame mutt _or_ complain about
inadequate documentation.
Thanks
cga