Consolidated Directions

So tell me what you think. I thought that it would be easier for future builders to have a more user-friendly way of viewing the directions/instructions of building a reprap if the online instructions were converted into a powerpoint, which could be converted to a pdf so that all operating systems could view it. I am now in the beginning stages of this, so any input is good input. Thanks. redskinsjbs@yahoo.com

PowerPoint would be a bad idea, but it wouldn't be a bad idea for it all to be consolidated into pdfs.

I think it'd als obe a good idea to get it all sorted on the Wiki front.

Good idea for both formats even though I think Microsoft is the devil. Putting the instructions in as many formats as possible is best but maintaining that pile of trash will be daunting after awhile. Consider it before going too far. PDF is the best by far, I think.

Demented

Guys

Don't know if this will help or not, but thought i would offer the info.

I have done a lot of work on IT ISP'ing for the educational sector.

The way we worked with Open Source and made sure that everyone had access no matter what they were using was to use Twiki (same as yourselves) for documenting.

When folk wanted an off line copy we used a desktop with a CUPS PDF printer configured and used the print tab from Twiki to print to the PDF and create a Duplicate page for downloading.

I used the same method for giving out copies of large project plans, diagrams et al.

Having only one source of Prime information ie the Twiki Wiki consolidated effort and results on the Doc's and then the PDF's made it portable and down loadable for those who couldn't get their heads around using the same method to create their off line copies themselves.

If you took a similar approach/policy you could put a download pdf icon at the top of each wiki page (a bit like manufacturers data sheets do, see Dallas Microchip for example)

The wiki page is it then.

I guess if the sysadmin was realy having a good day he/she could use make within a script to automaticaly check and reprint-to-pdf any pdfs that had an older date/time than their source Twiki file. (say once a day at 02:00)

Ta da self maintaining and updating too

Hope this is of some value.

Cheers

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

My thinking in the type of organization that I am doing is that it will make this project more accessible to people of the more average-joe type.

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Jay

I agree

It does'nt get more ubiquitous and simple than a PDF.

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Only one problem with scripting the thing to post a .pdf of the current page at 2:00am. All the spammers who'd learn to hit the 'site at 1:59am.

If there was decent automated anti-spam methods in place, along with, perhaps, a trusted last-known-good page, then this would be great. Doing this, however, means that the .pdf would generally lag behind the wiki by about a day. Enough time for any legitimate changes to be recognized and given the last-known-good designation by trusted editors.

Sean,

Even though I see the spam in the wiki all the time, I forget about it in instances like this. Perhaps we could lock the wiki for now and institute an edit application wherein you have to be active on the forums for a given amount of time/posts before you can apply for wiki editing privs? That seems like it would effectively cull out all spam bots and those who would want to put them up while still allowing for new people to come in and help out.

Demented

Sean

The clever thing about using make in a script is that you could actually run it every 5 minutes it wouldn't actually matter.

I fact every 5 would be great. ><

Make rules only process that which needs processing. Ergo no changes to regenerated PDF's if there has been no change of the source documents.

If you reprocess every 5 mins spam lives for 5 mins only.

I suggested 02:00 for the hell of suggesting something. Cut 02:00 and paste with an epoch your are prepared to live with.

If you want spam protection run it every 5 mins, processing is minimal as it is in reality proportionate to the amount of new PDF's to be written. Which given the Wiki's current rate of refresh is not likely to be problematic.

Ask the Apple Mac users what they think of being coerced into using power point, the reply is equally illuminating.

Open Office is available at no cost for Linux & Mac, M$ Orrifice is'nt.

Let me see, 5 mins of spam versus a lifetime of being forced down the M$ route with the factory welded on goodness of malware, gratis.....

Death before dishonor dear boy.

cheers

aka47

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Necessity hopefully becomes the absentee parent of successfully invented children.

Oh. I had nothing to say about PowerPoint. On that subject, however. I downloaded two different PowerPoint viewers, both different year versions of MicroSofts, in an attempt to view a powerpoint file that came with some church graphics.
Both failed, in the same manner. I don't hold to PowerPoint being reliable.

Something else, though. How about scripting it to update a certain number of the oldest pages, but not necessarily all of them by default. If there are two pages that are changed, it gets both of them. If there are twenty, it might get all twenty. If there are fifty, all with changes ranging from a "teh" changed to a "the", to an addition of a wanted object, to a line filled with links to different free webservices, (or anonymised traditional pay webhosts,) hopefully already caught and reverted, it would get the first 5 megabytes of changed pages, and leave the rest for later.

OK, So finally back to work. My impression from the discussion above was that powerpoint is the wrong way to go. The purpose/goal for these directions have also changed a little bit. Now, the purpose of these directions is to try to bridge the gap between the techies and the normal people who are interested in RepRap. My idea just stems from talking about this project with kids at my school. I am now creating a power-point style set of directions in flash so that all computers can view it easily(latest version of flash player is required). I have attached what I have done so far, so any preliminary comments/suggestions/etc. are greatly appreciated. ***ATTENTION*** These directions are by no means intended to take the place of the wiki, they are merely, what i think to be, an easier and more viewer friendly way of viewing the directions to building a RepRap.

RepRap.swf

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2008 09:29PM by Jay Swift.

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Jay

Jay - tried to look at your RepRap.swf and guess what. I don't have ShockWave Flash on my machine. I am using a M$oft machine because it is a reasonable desktop machine. But I try to limit the amount of software on it because even with McAfee on it I get tired of reloading the machine because of bad software.

This was just to let you know that not all of use the tools that you do. I am sorry that I cannot help with your instruction validation.

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Bob Teeter
"What Box?"

When I get to the electronics slide and click "arduino based," it goes to a blank slide with no buttons. Is that a bug, or have you just not gotten to that yet? Also, it cuts out halfway through the gen1 electronics when you click that.

In addition, the buttons on some slides bounce out/in, and on some slides they don't move and the slide bounces between them. I much prefer the second approach as it allows for quicker navigation to a specific slide, but this should be consistent, either way.

Interesting approach. I'm not sure how big the market for it will be though... will have to think about this. I can see it being especially useful in a group workshop setting, with these instructions up on a projector while everyone proceeds at the same pace.

EDIT:
@Robert Teeter: I use the flash plugin for the freeware image viewing program "Irfanview" to watch .swfs. It's a lot lighter weight than full-blown flash.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2008 10:14PM by Kyle Corbitt.

quick response to Kyle---Yea, the arduino doesn't have anything attached. I have just worked on it for a very short while, so the 10 or so slides that are there are all that I have right now. This was just supposed to sort of introduce/give a visual of the idea

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Jay