Don't Worry Amy 
I've noticed Amy fretting over this kind of thing for a while.
| No, wait a minute, that's not even true. Somebody who wants to use just NewsRiver is not necessarily a maker of anything. Should there be sections in the docs like "If you don't think you need anything but the aggregator, read this." |
I think we shouldn't try to anticipate every type of user that may come looking for help . . . other than to be aware that we will have every type of user! If we do a good job of writing and organizing the docs then people will be able to find what they need. If something looks too basic to an advanced user they will skip past it. If it's too daunting for a newbie they will go on to the next bit.
The key may be to write in bite-sized chunks and link to each of those chunks from an outline. It seems to me that if we use inclusion that it would also be possible to build a number of entry paths. One path (a higher level node)would be denser and include many details. Another may be lighter. They will point to the same documentation at certain points.
What we definitely should avoid is just pointing people off in every direction.
| "Go to this site to read about foo, or this site, and this one's not bad." That's what happened with Radio. What a mess. You had 10 perspectives and nothing meshed. |
Without thinking about this too deeply it seems to me that there's one big "nodeItAll" which points to other docs via inclusion and that this main node looks rather like a table of contents.
More good thoughts from the stream
How do we deal with this?
| a fundamental issue i have with outlining is what to do with nodes that belong in two places? i wish there was an alias function. |
Maybe if the node belongs in two places it needs to be a file sitting on the drive by itself and included in each of those two places. Am I understanding you correctly? Does my response make sense? Is it practical? Thinking out loud and not too deeply.
Oh that it would!!
| i wonder if the opml editor will someday become a more mac like application? |
Donovan points out a number of issues that drive me bonkers. I really, really appreciate that Dave has built his tools to run on the Mac so I don't like to push this too hard. But I think it's not a part of his culture. He builds things to work in ways that make sense for him. Frontier and it's ancestors (though less so) are really platforms unto themselves and sometimes make only grudging acknowlegement of the operating systems. I'm exaggerating a bit for effect but . . .
I use a Mac because I like the experience. I want all my apps to behave properly in that environment. It's a testament to Dave's tools that despite their non-Mac-ness and my Mac snobbery I still feel compelled to use Frontier, Radio, and the OPML Editor!
Follow up question
Is there a way to resolve this issue?
| why can't i run opml editor and radio at the same time? address conflict. |
Coool!
Once you bleeding edgers have the kinks worked out (and when I can steal a moment) I want to give this a go myself. Also need to sort out my dynamic dns issues.
| I've been testing the OPML Community Server for the last couple of days. I've got an all-in-one G3 with 256 MB RAM running OS X10.3.9 and it actually works. I'm installing fresh now to give it another try. [CosmicDread] |
I didn't know you could run Panther with that little RAM.
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