With V2.0 out there, and being very well received I'm going to back out of the
major coding effort - at least for the time being. However I'll still handle
bugfixes, and minor clean-ups along with actual releases. This will give the
other devs space to do their thing, and I know there are some interesting ideas
out there :)
However, I'm not one for sitting around doing nothing, so I'll turn my
attention to the new user guide, which isn't *actually* being written yet :P
So this is what I propose - and as usual, shout if you think there's a problem
or even the whole idea sucks.
First of all, reposition the existing 'Yoshimi Advanced User Manual' as a
'Yoshimi Advanced Reference Manual' and remove the chatty bits.
Then create a "Yoshimi User Guide" which will be much smaller and won't go into
all the details of how everything works and why, but but more a case of 'do
this to get that'.
Also instead of a PDF, this would be a set of html documents with a layout
structure as close to that of Yoshimi itself as is practical. Specifically, it
would be pure html + css, no javascript etc. Also, I think the text should flow
freely, and images scale to the current display width. This will ensure it is
readable on any device with a browser (and there can't be many without one!)
and both portrait and landscape on mobiles. It also makes the document readable
to our blind users, whereas PDFs are apparently a nightmare.
Another benefit of using html, is that much of the navigation is built-in.
Multiple views on tabs, forward and backward movement, as well as cross-links.
If possible, I'd like to have each section as self contained as possible and
in it's own directory with just links across. This would make updates *much*
easier.
For example, you'd have an AddSynth section which would have links to LFOs,
Envelopes, Filters, but of course PadSynth would also have these links and
SubSynth would have links to just Filters and Envelopes. if, at a later date,
someone finds a way of adding LFOs to SubSynth, all that is required is
a new link, and a bit of explanation in the SubSynth section.
Taking the filters, you can have a reasonable description of the different
types of filters within that section (where it's relevant) and nowhere else!
One final point. Once there was a fixed basic structure in place, anyone could
offer to take on a particular section and manage it in isolation from the rest,
just taking a glance across the desk so-to-speak to ensure a similar writing
style.
Of course the first thing is to get that basic structure in place (assuming
folks here don't have a problem with it all). For that I'll probably be asking
for some assistance from one of Yoshimi's little band of helpers :)
This could take a while :o
--
Will J Godfrey
http://www.musically.me.uk
http://yoshimi.github.io
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.
Yoshimi source code is available from either:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/yoshimi
Or: https://github.com/Yoshimi/yoshimi
Our list archive is at: https://www.freelists.org/archive/yoshimi
To post, email to yoshimi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
