[05:09] <IlyaHaykinson> *sigh*
[05:10] <IlyaHaykinson> ok, so i have a lot of technical writers who want to help
[05:10] <IlyaHaykinson> how should i arrange them?
[05:14] <godbyk> IlyaHaykinson: Are they wanting to write or edit or what?
[05:15] <godbyk> Did we get authors to fill in the chapters that had gone dormant?
[12:52]  * thorwil pokes vish 
[12:52]  * vish ouch , wth! was just tweaking the manual title ;)
[12:53] <thorwil> :)
[12:54] <thorwil> vish: i guess i will try to put some example text into my svg layout template to see if it works out
[12:54] <thorwil> vish: any thoughts on using icons and maybe patterns?
[12:55] <vish> thorwil: icons , IMO , is not really ideal , i think the way David did with the cursor was good , adding too many icons just seems weird to me
[12:57] <thorwil> vish: it would have to be balanced carefully. the cursor is good for making it somewhat clear that it's about computers, but doesn't go beyond that
[12:58] <vish> thorwil: we can incorporate the cursor and add a few waves/ripples at the getting started
[12:58] <vish> *"Getting started..."
[12:59] <vish> thorwil: or just use the cursor as he has done , and add a few abstract patterns on the page...
[13:01] <vish> thorwil: IMO , we dont really need to add icons , more than the icons the cursor is sufficient that the book is about a computer.. ,  OR maybe i havent clearly understood your idea
[13:02] <thorwil> vish: no, seems your missing a part. it's about the WHY. why read the document? because of things you can accomplish with Ubuntu. so what are those things?
[13:04] <thorwil> it would of course also be legitimate to use words. just a list
[13:07] <vish> thorwil: we could rather use words on the title page than icons...   several words and a few words sticking out and being more prominent
[13:09] <vish> thorwil: then again , we have a title named "Getting started with Ubuntu" which is clear enough what the book is about ;)
[13:09] <thorwil> yes, What, not Why ;)
[13:10] <vish> why... ? "To get started " ;p
[13:10] <thorwil> not to forget that we can't expect readers to have a good idea of what ubuntu is
[13:10] <thorwil> vish: why as in motivation
[13:10] <vish> thorwil: how is using the categories icons gonna make it any clearer of what Ubuntu is?
[13:11] <thorwil> vish: ubuntu is just a means to an end
[13:11] <thorwil> vish: i expect that the real goal of a reader is not to get started with ubuntu
[13:12] <vish> thorwil: then what would be the real goal?
[13:12] <thorwil> vish: but to do one of the mentioned things
[13:12] <vish> hmm..
[13:13] <vish> thorwil: i didnt really like David's idea with the icons , it looked rather cheesy to me than classy... :(  but maybe you can do it better :)
[13:13] <thorwil> of course, there's the aspect of why-not-windows, but the reasons are way to complex to touch them on the title page
[13:14] <vish> thorwil: to me it seemed like those children's books ;)
[13:14] <thorwil> vish: that comes down to style
[13:15] <vish> thorwil: is it ok for the team to not use the lynx in the title page?
[13:16] <thorwil> vish: nobody complained yet, which makes me suspect nobody really got (to) that part of my spec, yet
[13:17] <vish> hehe ;p
[13:17] <vish> thorwil: what are the dimensions to be used?
[13:18] <vish> of the page*
[13:18] <thorwil> vish: a4 or letter
[13:18] <thorwil> a4: 210 x 297 mm
[13:19] <thorwil> letter: 8½ × 11 inch or 216 × 279 mm
[13:20] <thorwil> vish: title page should pick up the margins used inside
[13:22] <vish> k.
[13:39] <vish> argh! the words run over the lynx :/
[13:39] <vish> i guess we have to go with one word per line
[13:40] <thorwil> will .... read .... like ... cpt. .... kirk .... speaks
[14:47] <vish> godbyk: release version number is ?
[14:47] <vish> or shall i just mention it as alpha release ?
[14:47] <vish> thorwil: ^?
[14:48] <thorwil> vish: "Version 0.d, Month dddd" (with the comma or spacing) may appear on pre-releases
[14:48] <thorwil> alpha: February 10th, 2010 - Version 0.3
[14:49] <vish> thorwil: so i'll just change it as feb instead of jan ,is date really needed?
[14:49] <thorwil> so: "Version 0.3, February 2010" or "Version 0.3    February 2010"
[14:50] <vish> with the comma looks better..
[14:50] <thorwil> vish: just the year
[14:51] <thorwil> vish: this detail may very well look slapped-on, as it's a decidedly temporary thing
[14:51] <vish> yeah
[15:01] <ivaldo> Enter text here...ciao
[15:02] <ivaldo> sto cercando delle informazioni su come far funzionare la rete wireless con ubuntu 9.04
[15:04] <ivaldo> c'e' nessuno
[15:05] <ivaldo> c'e' nessuno?
[15:05] <thorwil> ivaldo: english, please
[15:06] <ivaldo> I don't speak english
[15:06] <ivaldo> do you know well ubuntu 9.04?
[15:07] <thorwil> ivaldo: you are on the wrong channel here, sorry
[15:07] <thorwil> this is not a help channel
[15:10] <ivaldo> ok
[15:10] <ivaldo> thanks
[15:11] <ivaldo> do you know an help channel
[15:11] <ivaldo> ?
[15:11] <thorwil> ivaldo: try #ubuntu-it, maybe #ubuntu-it-forum
[15:12] <thorwil> at least italian ;)
[15:16] <ivaldo> thanks thorwil  in italia si dice a buon rendere
[15:39] <thorwil> awesome, text-align: justify is broken in inkscape
[15:40] <thorwil> how silly of me to think one might be able to do serious, albeit single-page layout with it :/
[18:09] <dutchie> thorwil: you can use the bot to direct such confused people to their own channel :)
[18:09] <dutchie> !it
[18:09] <manualbot> Vai su #ubuntu-it se vuoi parlare in italiano, in questo canale usiamo solo l'inglese. Grazie! (click col tasto destro sul nome del canale per entrare)
[18:23] <thorwil> dutchie: great, ty
[18:23] <dutchie> other country codes work too
[18:24] <thorwil> !de
[18:24] <manualbot> In den meisten ubuntu-Kanälen wird nur Englisch gesprochen. Für deutschsprachige Hilfe besuchen Sie bitte #ubuntu-de, #kubuntu-de, #edubuntu-de oder #ubuntu-at. Geben Sie einfach /join #ubuntu-de ein! Danke für Ihr Verständnis.
[18:25] <vish> !uk
[18:25] <manualbot> Join us for a discussion using the Queen's English in #ubuntu-uk
[18:26] <thorwil> !us
[18:26] <manualbot> Factoid 'us' not found
[18:26] <vish> !jp
[18:26] <manualbot> 日本語の場合は #ubuntu-jp または #kubuntu-jp を参照して下さい
[18:26] <thorwil> !au
[18:26] <manualbot> The Australian Local Community Team has channels here on Freenode. They are #ubuntu-au for technical discussion, and #ubuntu-au-chat for social chatter.
[18:26] <vish> !nz
[18:26] <manualbot> nz is the New Zealand LoCo Team has a channel at #ubuntu-nz
[18:26] <thorwil> bah, uk is most fun
[18:27] <dutchie> \o/ uk is always most fun
[18:27] <dutchie> n
[18:27] <dutchie> !love-#ubuntu-offtopic
[18:27] <manualbot> Love is like racing across the frozen tundra on a snowmobile which flips over, trapping you underneath. At night, the ice-weasels come.
[18:29] <thorwil> luckily ice-weasels are just firefoxes without trademarked artwork
[20:35] <wolter> hey thorwil
[20:35] <wolter> has anybody done any artwork lately?
[20:35] <thorwil> hi wolter
[20:35] <wolter> which is not in the wiki?
[20:36] <thorwil> wolter: i think vish worked on the alpha title page
[20:36] <thorwil> wolter: i wrote the design spec i hope you read
[20:36] <wolter> yes
[20:36] <wolter> i've come with a new version myself
[20:36] <wolter> i didn't know about vish's wip
[20:38] <thorwil> wolter: i asked vish to do the necessary to answer Ben's request while you weren't around. sorry about the lack of communication
[20:38] <wolter> do not worry
[20:38] <wolter> can i take a look at it?
[20:39] <wolter> this is my new titlepage http://imagebin.ca/view/j4_DZU9B.html
[20:40] <thorwil> wolter: honestly not intending to mock you, but a very quick association: welcome to the twilight zone
[20:41] <wolter> whats that?
[20:41] <dutchie> thorwil: haha, love the text though
[20:41] <wolter> oh
[20:41] <wolter> old tv show, says google
[20:41] <thorwil> right, that one
[20:42] <wolter> did they have a similar presentation theme/
[20:42] <wolter> ?
[20:42] <thorwil> wolter: though you did a pretty nice job with light and shadow, just limited by trying to keep it bright
[20:43] <wolter> can you rephrase?
[20:43] <thorwil> wolter: the series has a long history, don't even know it much. it's just this door to another dimension idea (spooky kind)
[20:43] <wolter> oh
[20:44] <wolter> well, i was trying to illustrate a context of new world too
[20:44] <wolter> full of light
[20:45] <wolter> say, if i wanted to make a cover for a windows manual, i would put this instead
[20:45] <wolter> http://th01.deviantart.net/fs32/300W/i/2008/218/e/7/savannah_doorway_by_myrainclouds.jpg
[20:45] <thorwil> wolter: yes, but to do so, you need a contrast, ending up implying a rather dark/unpleasant here. at least in my eyes
[20:46] <wolter> thats a good idea
[20:46] <wolter> now i understand what you said about the keep it bright thing
[20:48] <vish> wolter: thorwil: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1325768/Cover-Version2lynx-lower.png
[20:48] <wolter> oh
[20:48] <wolter> ok
[20:50] <thorwil> vish: you could try to use the extra space between "b" and "t" by placing the "with" there (not sure whether that would work)
[20:50] <thorwil> vish: but generally this does the job done, so we should move on
[20:50] <vish> yeah
[20:51] <thorwil> gets, even, arg
[20:52] <vish> thorwil: so I upload one for a4 and one for letter ?
[20:52] <thorwil> godbyk: ^
[20:52] <godbyk> Title pages?  Yeah, we'll need an A4 version and a letter version.
[20:53] <thorwil> vish: current default seems to be letter
[20:53] <vish> k.
[20:53] <godbyk> I'll catch up on the rest of the conversation in just a moment. (Have to finish typing this email response.)
[20:53] <vish> i'll tag them appropriately , so the team can use it correctly
[20:54] <godbyk> Okay, email sent. Now let me catch up on the last 10 hours of conversation real quick. :)
[20:57] <godbyk> Who's David and what's the cursor thing?
[20:57] <thorwil> godbyk: David made the colorful title page proposals
[20:58] <thorwil> cursor thing: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-manual/Artwork/Initial_Proposals?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ubuntumanual_theclick_inside1_byKolorGuild.png
[21:02] <vish> godbyk: how was /Team images/screenshots/title.png , generated? it has artifacts.. :(
[21:02] <godbyk> vish: Not sure, I didn't generate that.
[21:03] <vish> the lynx's nose is messed up and there is an odd smudge on the page
[21:03] <godbyk> I take the svg you guys provide, pipe it through inkscape and output a PDF.
[21:03] <vish> godbyk: we need to watch out for that
[21:03] <godbyk> (Though inkscape likes to eat a few bits along the way, apparently.)
[21:03] <godbyk> Yeah, that's something that inkscape does.
[21:03] <godbyk> I'm not sure how to fix it at the moment.
[21:03] <vish> godbyk: hmm , odd. it inkscape here doesnt do that
[21:04] <godbyk> Really?
[21:04] <thorwil> are there radial gradients, blur, clipped elements in the SVG?
[21:04] <godbyk> run make clean, and then run "make coverpage.pdf"
[21:04] <godbyk> then look at the PDF and see if it appears mucked up.
[21:04] <vish> godbyk: i dont get an error like that, the above png was using inkscape
[21:04] <godbyk> PNGs are fine, PDFs not so much.
[21:05] <vish> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1325768/Cover-Version2lynx-lower.png
[21:05] <vish> godbyk: yeah , but that png itself is corrupted
[21:05] <godbyk> What PNG?  I don't make any PNGs (I don't think).
[21:05] <vish>  /Team images/screenshots/title.png
[21:06] <vish> godbyk: i didnt mean _you_ ;)
[21:06] <vish> godbyk: just saying we , need to watch out for those errors :)
[21:06] <godbyk> godbyk: Gotcha.
[21:12] <godbyk> I'm going to be working on the interior book design soon (to take a break from the translation side of things).
[21:12] <godbyk> Any specific comments are needs that haven't been addressed yet?
[21:12] <thorwil> godbyk: i created an a4 layout template in inkscape
[21:13] <godbyk> thorwil: Cool.  Is it in the repository? Or can you link me to it?
[21:13] <godbyk> Fixing the margins is one of the top items on my list (for both letter and A4).
[21:13] <thorwil> then found out that inkscape has a "justify" button, but doesn't actually justify text. aside of other issues with working with text
[21:13] <godbyk> I'm still trying to get fonts for all the languages we're supporting too.
[21:14] <godbyk> thorwil: Yeah, I've found inkscape to be lacking when it comes to working with text.
[21:14] <thorwil> so now i'm working with scribus to create that layout again, to be able to include example text
[21:15] <thorwil> godbyk: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/%7Et-w-/%2Bjunk/ubuntu_manual_cover/download/head%3A/layout_a4.svg-20100128134918-yenbpm0zvsr3vg5l-1/layout_a4.svg
[21:16] <thorwil> godbyk: there are 2 layouts in there, one solely based on golden ratio divisions of the page
[21:16] <thorwil> godbyk: the other ... well, unhide the "zick zack" layer
[21:16] <godbyk> okay.  (waiting for inkscape to load)
[21:17] <thorwil> wolter, vish: you might want to have a look at that, too
[21:18] <thorwil> my concerns were to stay above 7 mm page margins, have all distances either equal or clearly distinct, all distances in harmony, every rectangle one might see on the page with good proportions
[21:20] <vish> thorwil: thats the same earlier one you showed right?
[21:20] <thorwil> godbyk: btw, paragraph first line indent shouldn't be combined with space before paragraph (or margin-top for css people)
[21:20] <thorwil> vish: no, revised margins
[21:20]  * vish looks
[21:21] <godbyk> thorwil: I agree.  Those were inherited settings.
[21:21] <godbyk> That's why I'm going to clear away everything and start fresh.
[21:21] <godbyk> So there's one coherent design.
[21:21] <thorwil> vish: more inner margin in case it will be perforated
[21:21] <godbyk> (As opposed to trying to incorporate some former elements and not others and trying to figure out which is which.)
[21:22] <thorwil> godbyk: excellent. by chance ever read tschichold? :)
[21:22] <godbyk> thorwil: Yep.
[21:22]  * thorwil hugs godbyk 
[21:22] <godbyk> Clearly, inkscape hates me today and wants to eat my processor and not actually show a window.
[21:23] <godbyk> thorwil: Heh.. I've got a whole shelf of books on typography and whatnot.
[21:28] <godbyk> finally, inkscape popped up.
[21:28] <godbyk> now I can take a look at the page layout.
[21:28] <godbyk> thrWhat are the dark areas at the top?
[21:29] <thorwil> godbyk: area for page number and running header (or whats it called)
[21:30] <thorwil> so it's height only defines where the main text starts
[21:30] <wolter> ok ill have a look thorwil
[21:32] <godbyk> Hey, thorwil, if I can quiz you on some of the dimensions real quick, I can plug it into the manual and we can see what it looks like.
[21:33] <thorwil> godbyk: ok
[21:34] <thorwil> godbyk: outer margins (around bound main and margin-notes): outer: 11.703 mm
[21:34] <thorwil> inner: 30.639
[21:34] <thorwil> top 16.552
[21:35] <thorwil> bottom: 26.781
[21:35] <thorwil> header height: 26.781
[21:35] <thorwil> margin-note width: 33.399
[21:36] <thorwil> (gap between margin and main: 4.47)
[21:37] <godbyk> Okay. Let me generate the PDF and see if I got them all plugged in right.
[21:37] <vish> godbyk: i rendered the svg as png and pushed to branch
[21:37]  * vish didnt notice any artifacts , but if other double checked it would be nice :)
[21:37] <vish> others*
[21:38] <thorwil> godbyk: that's the "phi" layout, btw
[21:41] <wolter> ill do
[21:42] <thorwil> godbyk: what do you suggest as body text size?
[21:42] <godbyk> thorwil: What's the distance from the top of the page to the top of the main text block (ignoring the running head)?
[21:42] <godbyk> thorwil: It depends on the fonts we go with.
[21:42] <godbyk> Generally, 10 pt is a good starting place.
[21:43] <thorwil> godbyk: 43.333
[21:45] <wolter> oh vish, why would there be artifacts in the png?
[21:45] <wolter> i tell you one thing, the coverpage is using the svg and it is not rendering well
[21:45] <wolter> there is some code overlaying 'ubuntu
[21:45] <wolter> ' on the top
[21:46] <wolter> and the lynx has a severe layers problem
[21:46] <wolter> anyway, i'm off..
[21:46] <vish> wolter: this one currently in the branch has artifacts :(   /Team images/screenshots/title.png  , it messed up the lynx' nose
[21:47] <godbyk> thorwil: Does this match your layout? http://kevin.godby.org/private/ubuntu-manual/main-a4-thorwil.pdf
[21:47] <godbyk> It looks like the main text block is sitting too low on the page.  The running head really only consists of one line of text, so it doesn't need to be as tall as you have it in your layout.
[21:49] <thorwil> godbyk: too much space above the running head
[21:51] <vish> hmm , godbyk why do the links break alignment?
[21:51] <vish> ex: page 8
[21:52] <godbyk> vish: Under the contact details section?
[21:52] <vish> yeah
[21:52] <godbyk> The links don't break the alignment.
[21:52] <vish> its better to have them each in a single line there
[21:53] <godbyk> What happens is that if TeX can't hyphenate a word, then it occassionally is allowed to run outside the margins.
[21:53] <thorwil> enough for today, cya!
[21:53] <godbyk> Yeah, that whole paragraph needs to be rewritten anyway.
[21:57] <vish> godbyk: looks pretty impressive for an alpha :)
[21:59] <godbyk> vish: Things will get a lot more interesting when we start with translations.
[21:59] <godbyk> The languages using the Latin alphabet (or extended-Latin) are fairly easy to deal with.
[21:59] <vish> godbyk: how will they handle title page translation?
[21:59] <godbyk> Languages using others scripts are more difficult.  I have to find typefaces that support those languages. Make sure the layout accommodates them, etc.
[22:00] <godbyk> We may have to manually translate the title page and just have one title page per language in the repository.
[22:00] <godbyk> Then our code will just select the appropriate title page to include based on the language (and paper size).
[22:01] <vish> godbyk: can be superimpose the translation on the title page? use a translatable string there?
[22:01] <godbyk> Possibly, but we'll probably want to handle it manually so we can deal with alignment problems and other tweaks.
[22:02] <godbyk> There's no telling how the size of the English title will be in comparison to the size of the title in other languages.
[22:02] <vish> as a rule of thumb if we stick to center align , it might work
[22:03] <godbyk> Possibly.
[22:03] <godbyk> Remember that some languages read right-to-left or vertically.
[22:03] <vish> yeah :s
[22:04] <godbyk> Sadly, I only speak English.  So I'm relying on the translation teams to help me out with a lot of that stuff.
[22:05] <godbyk> For instance, I'm having a heck of a time finding a typeface that does a good job with the Telugu script.
[22:05] <godbyk> The ones I've tried so far aren't placing the vowels nicely.
[22:07] <vish> huh.. there is someone translating it to telugu o.0  interesting
[22:08] <godbyk> https://translations.launchpad.net/ubuntu-manual
[22:08] <godbyk> It's getting translated to lots of languages.
[22:08] <godbyk> (click View All Languages in the bottom right of that page)
[22:11] <vish> pretty neat..
[22:11] <godbyk> I think it's pretty awesome.
[22:11] <godbyk> I'm trying really hard to make sure the manual looks as good in Telugu, for instance, as it does in English.
[22:12] <godbyk> And that's pretty hard since I know virtually nothing about Telugu. :-)
[22:12]  * dutchie pokes launchpad's imports
[22:12] <godbyk> Uh oh.. don't piss off the translators again, dutchie! :-)
[22:13] <dutchie> this is to help me avoid pissing off the translators
[22:13] <godbyk> Did we ever figure out how to make it so it didn't reset everything each time we uploaded our new text?
[22:13] <dutchie> I think I fixed it
[22:13] <godbyk> cool
[22:13] <vish> i think the merges were the problem
[22:14] <godbyk> dutchie: Is there a way we can add just a plain boring text file to the list of 'translations' that may contain things that need to be translated or simple questions for the translators to answer?
[22:15] <godbyk> Some of the languages aren't in the polyglossia package yet, and I've been emailing individual translators for help.  But if I could add the handful of strings I need translated to a file that gets sent to the teams, it'd be easier.
[22:15] <godbyk> (I also need to get some suggestions on typefaces for each language, page size, date format, etc.)
[22:16]  * dutchie will have a look
[22:17] <godbyk> Thanks.
[22:18] <godbyk> brb.. gonna fix a sandwich.
[22:18] <c7p> i want to ask sth about translations. When the text of the manual will be permanent (or at least a chapter)? so we can know when to start translating? When the writing team modifies a string and updates the database then the whole string translation is lost. The result is very annoying for translators. We had translated 500 + strings before the recent update and now the translated strings are 146. brb
[22:23] <dutchie> c7p: sometime after the beta
[22:26] <godbyk> back
[22:27] <c7p> back
[22:27] <c7p> dutchie: thank you
[22:44] <c7p> cya