To update or not to update, that is the question!

[wildsage2]

I do think I could write an intelligible instruction book, if only I knew the instructions myself.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.

[wildsage2]

Keep me in mind.

[waxcylinder]

WS2: If this is an offer to help with the manual writing/editing, rather than an audition for am-dram Hamlet...., drop a PM to galeandrews, giving your background and ways in which you would like to help.

WC

[Gale Andrews]

<<<being a little unfair to the developers too>>>
I know how this works. Developer/programmers hate deadlines. Not having them is one of the pleasant features of self-directed projects.
However, the down side of that is infinite feature creep and patch leapfrogging. While the program daddies are busy with the fun task of "my subroutine is more stable than yours," does anybody remember why 1.4 isn't out the door already? The instructions. In five languages. And three platforms.Written against constantly moving code.Koz

We actually did have a blitz on moving the Manual forward Winter 2007/8 but obviously the Manual can't be finalised at the moment entirely because the codebase will be changing so much during Google Summer of Code. Some of the improvements that should bring will directly benefit large numbers of users such as labels moving with the audio. I certainly hope 1.4 will be released "before" the next Summer of Code.

As for the Manual, I have come to the conclusion that developers are not necessarily the best people to write it; you have to know the program and something of the code but then put yourselves in the place of the users reading the manual. For that reason we asked for help writing the manual a while ago:
http://www.audacityteam.org/manual/inde ... =Main_Page

but waxcylinder has turned out to be the only person to regularly contribute. And yes translating the Manual is a huge issue and can't be done until the English version is complete. If wildsage2 or anyone else is interested in helping with the manual in English, please contact me so an account can be created on the above Wiki. We'd be glad of the help, especially from anyone on Mac and Linux, as waxcylinder and I are on Windows.

Thanks

Gale

[kozikowski]

How are you dealing with OS versions? I have one Intel Mac, but no Leopard. Most of our Mac world at the shop is older Power PC chips and non-Leopard operating systems.

Koz

[wildsage2]

For what it is worth, as an under informed member of this forum, I am using the big Intel running OS X 10.5.4.... as Leopard as it gets, so far. I have yet to answer my own question about trying the new beta, but as I am not in the middle of any projects, I may embolden myself to try it.