It seems to me like the dev team is taking on too many projects, and the documentation gets left behind.
One of the strengths of commerical products is that there is sooo much documentation available for them, heck, its updated every time a new version is out.
If Blender really wants to compete with its commerical competitors, it needs to keep up its documentation.
My idea is that the Blender team might be able to put together another team of experienced ers and write some documentation. Either that, or maybe the Blender team itself should postpone the next release (whenever that is) until Blender can be fully documented.
Oh, btw, I read that poll on whether there should be a comparison chart comparing Blender to its commercial competitors (I know that was a while ago) and I wholheartedly agree. Don’t take offense to it; if Blender’s less powerful, then its less powerful, but that only shows us where we need to go! So PLEASE!!! Make a comparison chart!!
Blender is not competeing angainst the Big Wigs. It is in its own league. The best thing that Blender has, compared to the others, is the price (which is free - open source), and the other software companies can’t compete with that.
Yes, the documentation would be nice, but like most of us, we manage to get what we need to know. I have used Blender long enough, I can at least afford to buy the books by now, if they were current.
I’ve yet to see Ton release an official version of Blender without putting out a well-written, thorough, heavily-illustrated release log document that reads like a mini-manual. It includes a description, and usually some examples, of all the major new features and a brief description of the minor changes. Also, just about every bug fix is mentioned as well (or at least a link to a list of bug fixes is included.
The Blender Project does not have the resources of a commercial app, but it releases updates more often than most other apps. I think most users would rather have Ton working on the new features than keep us waiting for the good stuff until all the formal documentation is completed. The well-done release logs are certainly good enough for me.
I can understand how frustrating it can be for a new user to keep up with the changes, and having to follow documentation in several different places to learn to use the application. But trust me: you have it WAY better than many of us had it just a few years ago. The documentation is more consistent and professional now than it was in the past.
The documentation is catching up a lot of pages are current with 2.40 and 2.41.
Of course your help is welcome if you are interested in volunteering, you can use the release notes or tutorials as a basis and help update a section. Sign up at the wiki and then you’ll need to email me (see the wiki for my email address it is on the front page). You can also join bf-docboard mailing list.
Like pell mentioned, The release Logs are practically the manual. I understand that documentation is quite important, however if the team is taking time to update them, there are other means to learn the new functionality. The Release Logs and the forum combined. If you have a problem, there are always helpful people in the forum.
Also, I believe there are some volunteers who would come up with tutorials for any new functionality - if a new function or feature is added.
Blender does not need to compete with other modelling softwares, its in a category of its own. Fine so there isnt as much funding, but for us, its free. Well you gain some, you lose some.
Open Source projects are a collective effort where people work in areas that appeal to their interests and talents.
Right now we have a team of developers and a team of tech writers. Ths is Good, because traditionally, programmers write terrible documentation. The documentation will probably always lag a little behind, especially at times when we do major restructuring that requires UI changes. We do nag and scold developers to add useful descriptions to their CVS commits to help the doc team keep up.
As LetterRip mentioned in his post above, anyone is welcome to help with the doc, even if it is only proofreading. This will only get done if people volunteer to do it, so line up and sign up today!
Unfortunately, I don’t know Blender enough to make tutorials. But I can understand that it must be pretty time consuming. I’m pretty buisy myself, but if someone could type it out, email it to me, then I could put up on the wiki. But, I suppose if someone’s going to type it out they might as well do the whole thing; I mean that’s the only draw back to that system I can think of; who knows, maybe it might.
Sorry if my first post came off like I was yelling…I just noticed it might look that way
P.S.: Does anyone know if Adobe Acrobat was used to create the pdf files for the Blender Quickstart thing that comes with Blender, or is there an open source application?
