Template field on the General page of the document properties

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahhh, ok. I don't know what is in the notes but it's got to be worth having a quick look because there is likely to be some helpful stuff in there.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

As an electrical engineer from the 1960s--where we programmed discrete digital electronics then a decade before there were even simple rudimentary integrated circuits--we employed machine code in low-level programming, which tended to be termed "spaghetti code." Everything back then was a kludge of sorts, out of necessity. Be advised that the Apollo command computer of the 1960s had only four KILObytes of RAM back then... The computer next to this old P4 has two million times as much RAM as standard equipment and will still install another 16GB.

Terminology is one field does not have to parallel that of another field. I am sure that most in the docs end of IT would understand what kludges or workarounds in documentation might entail.

Gary

Hi,

They can serve as a cheap-and-easy form of conditional writing because the
viewing (and printing) of the comments can be effectively squelched via menu
commands and other options. However, if such kludges and their documentation
ever become separated from each other, then numerous ambiguities as to their
existence and possible usage can easily arise.

I'm not aware of any kludges in the docs teams methods or the docs
produced. It deserves to be said that Jean Weber has brought a lot of
expertise and put in a lot of work to help us develop pretty clean and
methodical ways of doing things. Do you have any specific examples of
"kludges" to point out? If there are any, I'm sure we can find a
solution pretty quickly.

One would surely not be aware of any if they were not disclosed, now would they?

Well, Jean was the most likely editor who used them at OOoAuthors in order to get around a number of deficiencies with the master documents, mostly. The rub was that she rarely, if ever, disclosed them--unless somebody might tamper (remove) them inadvertently without realizing that they were "features" installed for some workaround or another.. Then, Jean might state that such-and-such was there for some workaround and that it should be left intact.

Other locations for some kludges might be on the title pages of the individual chapter files. Not disclosing them could "break" things, though, if other editors would work on such files without being aware of their presence.

A parallel in the computer-coding business is having a coder who might do things to enable "job security." However, I am not including Jean into that kind of group. I was coming up with hints and suggestions for some future tutorials, and disclosing workarounds was just one of those suggestions. So, I brought it up here.

In any event, I am not against the use of kludges, as they often are the only way to accomplish some objectives with non-compliant applications--like the earlier versions of the quite buggy master documents in OOo. But, to be professional, those kludges really must be disclosed whenever they are employed.

'Nuff said... I came across a bit of obsolete material recently while technical editing the "Working with Templates" chapter. One subsection refers to installing the Template Changer, which is now preinstalled in LO. So, I remedied that. There is another area where a nonexistent command is documented. So, that subsection needs rewriting, as I left it for another volunteer to finish. Should be easy to finish, though. That chapter had not been modified at all in over eight months, so it needed work.

Perhaps, some volunteer writers who work with templates, like Jean and others, might add some input to that chapter, as she is writing a book on the subject, I think. I added some simple marginal notes in the chapter about some very minor ways to beef up the chapter. Also, a version 3.4 screen capture is needed. I will let others do the screenshots.

Another area is: writers who do not follow the formatting rules concerning paragraph and character styles in the template exposition. Using manual overrides (direct formatting) is a no-no.

Gary

Gary,
I would very much like to get a copy of your edit of the Writer Guide
chapter on templates. The factual errors you found may also be present
in the Getting Started guide chapter on styles and templates, which
I've had one pass through for v3.4 but may well have missed.

The last time I checked your forum (yesterday), it had not yet been
uploaded. And AFAIK you have not put it on the LO Alfresco site
either.

Thanks, Jean

Well, Jean was the most likely editor who used them at OOoAuthors in order
to get around a number of deficiencies with the master documents, mostly.
The rub was that she rarely, if ever, disclosed them--unless somebody might
tamper (remove) them inadvertently without realizing that they were
"features" installed for some workaround or another.. Then, Jean might state
that such-and-such was there for some workaround and that it should be left
intact.

Those are appropriate and correct uses of fields, NOT (by my
understanding of the terms) "kludges" or "workarounds", and they were
documented, though I suspect the explanations have become lost over
the years. If I had infinite time, I would make sure that loss of
documentation didn't happen. When I have a chance, I'll check the
chapter on the template (and the info in the template itself) and fill
in any missing info.

Other locations for some kludges might be on the title pages of the
individual chapter files. Not disclosing them could "break" things, though,
if other editors would work on such files without being aware of their
presence.

See above.

Your general point is well taken (be sure to document the use of fields etc).

--Jean

I thought you visited the site, as I checked out the new update of the statcounter app that monitors my web sites. I got an email from them (StatCounter.com) to check out their new monitoring system. (It's free.) There were three visitors from Australia and another from New Zealand, among others today. Another was from my hometown, Milwaukee, tonight.

I would not ever place a work-in-process file on Alfresco. So far, I will stop editing and freeze the chapter file (a work-in-process) and affix a _mod_0 suffix to its filename. After I rewrite it, I will affix a _mod_1 suffix for the second edit, etc. That way (to me) is better than the OOoAuthors manner of filenaming. I will upload the now-frozen, mostly edited chapter file tonight, plus leave a link to its URL on this message board after I do so.

Gary

Thanks for the kind words, David, but many of the files are not as
"clean" as they could be and the solutions to their problems are not
easy or quick, partly because they are not consistently reproducible.
However, the problems that I am aware of (mainly related to some
cross-references becoming incorrect when individual files are combined
into a book) are not the items that Gary has been mentioning, which in
my vocabulary are neither kludges nor workarounds. See my comment on
the other thread that Gary started.

Trying to diagnose and fix the x-ref problem is a long-running
problem, going back years. TJ Frazier at OOo put some effort into it
and, I believe, filed an issue. IMO it is probably related to the fact
that many chapters began their lives as .swx files (OOo 1.x) and a few
as .DOC files (from Word 97) rather than a bug in OOo or LO
themselves. But that's a separate discussion, and I lack the energy to
go there now.

--Jean