German Base-Handbuch 4.1 ready

Regarding the Base Handbook (translated from German).

Hello Mark,

I 'm the person, who had written most of the German Base-Handbuch.

Don't know where the English chapters of the old Handbook could be
downloaded. ODF-Autors, I think. The english version is made with of the
German Base-Handbuch 3.5. Only the chapter for the reports is from
version 4.0. I have seen, there is a version 4.0 - but it seems to be
the same.

Yes, the English Base Handbook v4.0 is identical to the v3.5-3.6
Handbook; due to lack of time, we did not translate the changes made
in the German version.

The source ODT files for the English version are here:
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/base-handbook/published

Thank you, Robert, for the links below to the v4.1 German files and
your spreadsheet of changes.

I have created a Calc-document, which shows the difference between the
versions (only the chapters, which had been added) and, marked by
comments, the chapter, where you could find the new functions of Base in
version 4.1. This new functions are a "must be" for a book for version 4.1.

This document, together with the whole LO 4.1-Handuch, you can find here:
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/
The docoment, which show the difference, is
http://robert.familiegrosskopf.de/lo_hb/Vergleich_Base_Handbuecher.ods

All these documents are written in German. But when I would try to
translate it could be I don't find the right words for the content....
So could be better that someone will translate, who speaks English very
well.

Whoever does the translating can decide whether to with the existing
English translation and update it with the v4.1 changes, or start from
the German 4.1 and do a complete new translation. This decision might
vary depending on the chapter; some may have more changes than others.
I have not yet had time to look at Robert's spreadsheet.

In addition to translating, we might want to rewrite some material
(such as examples) to suit English-speaking audiences better. This was
done in a few places in the v3.5 handbook.

IMO the goal should be to get a usable document done as quickly as
possible and then amend it later if we want to. That's what we did
with the v3.5 book. A more long-term goal is to combine the handbook
material with work being done on the Base Guide. I will write more
about the Base Guide in a separate note.

BTW, we have a system for tracking who is doing what on each book, but
unfortunately not everyone keeps it up to date. (I am as guilty of
this as anyone; I get busy and forget.) It's on this page:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Development/UserGuideTasks

--Jean

--Jean

Regarding the Base Guide

Thank you so much for holding my hand Y'all. I found the location where the Base documents are kept. Now, what do I do with the documents that are stored there? Is there a team leader/contact person who knows what needs doing and where to get the information from?

I am the docs team leader, but Dan Lewis has been doing most of the work on the Base Guide, which is one of the docs on Base.

I will write in detail tomorrow about what needs doing and where to find files and other info. (I just got home from a month away and a 36-hour day of travel, and I am going to fall asleep any minute.)

Welcome to the team!

-- Jean

Thanks to Robert for posting the links to info about the Base
Handbook. In this note I will talk about the Base Guide, which Dan
Lewis has been working on.

Dan's latest outline is here:
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/base-guide/draft-v3.6/dan_base-guide-outline/view

AFAIK, the latest drafts are here:
http://www.odfauthors.org/libreoffice/english/base-guide/draft-lo3.4

(Although there is a folder named draft-lo3.5, it contains files which
AFAIK have been superseded by those in the folder for v3.4. And the
"last modified" dates given on the website are often wrong, because
they were reset to the date when the website's software was updated:
Feb 26, 2013. A file with a later date is probably correct, but many
of those with Feb 26 dates are in fact much older.)

--Jean

I've been writing test scripts quite a lot recently. Are there test
scripts for LO Base? Maybe that might be a good use of my time.

Base is an area of LibreOffice that has significantly less unittests
than the rest of LibreOffice. I just added *one* and David Ostrovsky /
Andrzej Hunt have added a few in the more-or-less recent past. I'd be
very happy to see the test coverage increase :slight_smile:

If you want to contribute unittests, please come over to the
development mailing list: libreoffice@lists.freedesktop.org
http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice

We have several ways to write unit tests; one is in C++, one in Python
and I *think* we can write them in Basic macros, too? (But I'm really
not sure about the latter.)

I'm no C programmer so I don't think I've got a lot to offer with
coding. I'm assuming that LO Base is primarily written in C.

(It is mostly in C++, by the way.)