[Scummvm-devel] ScummVM 1.0 and "The Manual"

[Kostas Nakos]

Hello,

Max Horn wrote:
> First off, does anybody have any other concerns regarding aiming for  
> making the next release be "1.0" ? (and I am implicitly assuming we'd  
> make "1.0  beta" releases, too, of course).

Let me make it explicit :) : That'd be a requirement for the CE port, in
order to iron out some "inconveniences" and also to help improve support
for all devices. I'll certainly use the svn snapshot release mechanism
through the forums in the meantime, but a couple of beta releases will
increase my confidence in the backend as these releases will reach,
inevitably, a wider userbase.

> So, that leaves my good old main concern: What to do about docs / a  
> manual / "User's Guide"... <snip>

I agree with most/all of this. I'll happily contribute to the relevant
Windows CE sections. The draft chapter outline seems good.

I'd like to point out the following, though: Most users want to download
scummvm, install and run a game right away (and also know how to save,
quit, etc.). Although we have taken as much care as we can to make this
a *very* straightforward procedure (and it is), there is a significant
percentage of the users which hit some walls during the process. A great
big manual with all the details, as well a thorough readme file seem
daunting and may be easily ignored in favor of asking online for help
(*). I note that there are indeed several introductory sections, but I
suggest we augment: It would be great if we had a really short and sweet
"install, unpack, run, save, quit" section with itemized steps as near
to the top of the manual as possible, with lots of screenshots to guide
first time users. We can also splice this section out to a separate
"First Run" document, although I do not favor this much.

Regards,
Kostas

(*) There will surely be users like this no matter what, but let's
minimize this percentage.