I’d like to help make major improvements to the documentation for the Uno library and/or the IDL reference. Could I use crowdfunding to support this?
— TLDR —
Several years ago I changed my personal office suite from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. I haven’t regretted that decision, but a constant thorn in my side has been macros. I had a substantial collection of MS Office macros that I had come to depend on. I planned to port (or rewrite) them to LO, and hoped to be able to switch from Basic to a “real” language (Python).
I’ll spare you the saga of all the pitfalls I encountered trying to learn how to write LO macros, and focus on the single most vexing one: the lack of good documentation for the Uno API and the IDL reference. Whether I’m trying to understand how an existing macro works, or write a new one from scratch, I always seem to hit a brick wall when I try to understand the various classes/interfaces and their members.
I have a strong motivation to do something to improve the documentation, rather than just complain about it. I have the skills and experience to do it, but it’s a huge task. I can’t justify donating enough time to it to make a difference, and I’ve read that the Document Foundation employs very few engineers. I think there’s enough demand for this work that I could defray my time investment through crowdfunding, but I have no idea whether this would violate any rules or norms within the LO/TDF community.
So… Is this an idea I should pursue?
Thank you for your feedback,
– Ed Stauff
