Mastering Total Commander

pdavit · Post by *pdavit » 2003-07-05, 12:18 UTC

What would you say if us, the users, of TC create a pdf manual? We can collect the best instructions created by us depending of which TC elements the individual user is using frequently and knows how to master. One guy can describe for example how to effectively use the Multi-rename Tool, one can work on Folder Synch, one on Compare by Contents etc and then gather up all the information and create a single pdf file in a unified style with contents etc.

I personally believe the outcome will be very good and helpful to users that do not know how to beastly take advantage of each individual feature of TC. Splitting the workload in this way can realize this project quite fast too! We just have to agree to some standards that need to be followed in order to have a unified result like: screenshots in the default layout (excluding the part of the document on configuring TC), the grammatical syntax, the form of examples etc.

Concluding, a nice filename for the final document can be MasteringTotalCmd.pdf

So, any thoughts? Who's willing to work on which element of TC? What are your suggested standards that should be followed? Who can master Acrobat for the final assemble with nice touches?

Kind regards,
Panos

bobputnam · Post by *bobputnam » 2003-07-05, 12:45 UTC

It sounds like a great idea! Being a relative TC neophite, one of my biggest difficulties is finding out all the available program features. And there are a lot.

With other programs, I'll skim the manual from cover to cover at the beginning. It's fortunate that I've got a duplex printer - some of the PDFs are several hundred pages long. I was surprised that Christian doesn't (?) have one available...

VadiMGP · Post by *VadiMGP » 2003-07-05, 12:50 UTC

It sounds very good! And don't forget to add chapter(s) about most popular plugins.

pdavit · Post by *pdavit » 2003-07-05, 12:59 UTC

VadiMGP wrote:It sounds very good! And don't forget to add chapter(s) about most popular plugins.

I guess we should easily assign this part of the manual to Maxwish!

Here are some more examples:

Me, Roman, and a guy that doesn't allow me to call him by his nickname or refer to him in general (

) can work on Creating Custom Menus.

I presume Aezay is good on configuring colors and FTP.

Valentino seams to be an expert on the File Search tool.

Djk likes to manually modify the ini file.

JackFoo seams to like the Multi-rename Tool.

There is a great number of other users with very good experience in other fields (including the above) like: Ergo, Fabiochelly, Norfie and Andre Martin. But don't get me wrong here. I'm not picky at all, these are just some suggestions and I'm actually waiting from YOU to post here your favorite topic as YOU only know your cons and pros.

djk · Post by *djk » 2003-07-05, 14:16 UTC

Good idea pdavit!!!
I'm just preparing a web site (I hope to publish it soon

) about TC for Polish users. Many people here still don't know English so good to read the forum or original FAQ and manual so they even don't know about all the plugins and advanced features. I just wanted to publish at it some advices and ideas how to get more form TC, describe the plugins, etc...
So your idea is really close to it

I like the idea but:
- I remember many projects which sounded nice at the beginning but they just died during the realization

- There should be one person who would like to coordinate the project. It's necessary IMO.
- Many of us are not native English speakers so... it would be useful if there was a person for correcting all the texts. It's easy to write here, on the forum, because we just write to solve our problems and we don't care too much of grammar etc, but for future publications it should be written correctly.

VadiMGP wrote:And don't forget to add chapter(s) about most popular plugins.

Well, it should be one of the most important part. Plugins are the power of TC

pdavit wrote: Djk likes to manually modify the ini file.

With a big pleasure I could help Maxwish with plugins, too

- Well, it would be really good if the work was divided among many of us but I think we all should have access to all of the parts of the projects cause even people who know certain problem very well they look at it just from their point of view (usually as the expert not as the typical users, I mean what can seem to them easy, maybe difficult to understand for others).
- It would be also nice to have multilanguage version of the manual (for the reasons I wrote at the beginning).

Summarizing: I like the idea and I'm going to take part in it but we must realize it can be really difficult task.

pdavit · Post by *pdavit » 2003-07-05, 15:14 UTC

> I remember many projects which sounded nice at the beginning but they just died during the realization

Well, it's up to us then to keep it alive! Even if it ends up being incomplete it would still be a step forward than having nothing. Or people that are really involved can complete the missing parts in the expense of not being the most professional details on areas that they do not feel experts!

>…it would be useful if there was a person for correcting all the texts.

Any offers guys? English is not my native language too although I have sources that can easily fit for this task.

> There should be one person who would like to coordinate the project. It's necessary IMO.

I agree to that. For starter lets say Christian! I'm joking since his free time is quite limited unless he's willing to do that. In an effort to simplify things this person can be the one responsible for putting all the information together in the pdf form.

> I think we all should have access to all of the parts of the projects

That was my initial thought too! With the completion of an individuals work it should be posted here directly and not via private emails.

> It would be also nice to have multilanguage version of the manual (for the reasons I wrote at the beginning).

True but first things first. With all do respect most of the times this kind of approach leads to non-realized projects as people tend to focus on what more can we have other than how can we beastly implement the current specs!

> I like the idea and I'm going to take part in it but we must realize it can be really difficult task.

So?! Isn't TC a really difficult task? Isn't the product of only one person? At least for this project we are a lot and the probabilities of the completion of the task are much higher, isn't it?

What we need now is for the following couple of weeks or so to have peoples' offers for the features they feel good at and a discussion on the standards that should be followed, e.g. captured screenshots in png format etc.

So, so far we have:

djk -> 1. Documentation on WCX, WFX and WLX Plug-in Installation, Configuration, Functionality and Availability for TC.
2. INI file tuning

pdavit -> 1. Documentation on Manually Creating Custom Menus for TC.
2. I also feel very comfortable with the Directory Hotlist feature.

Remark: It doesn't have to be only one person for one feature IMHO. The greater that number is the better contents we'll have although in the expense of project management complexity!

djk · Post by *djk » 2003-07-05, 15:32 UTC

pdavit wrote: Well, it's up to us then to keep it alive! Even if it ends up being incomplete it would still be a step forward than having nothing.

True...

pdavit wrote: > There should be one person who would like to coordinate the project. It's necessary IMO.
I agree to that. For starter lets say Christian!

I was afraid it wasn't a joke! But it was..

Let Christian do what he can the best - TC

pdavit wrote: > I think we all should have access to all of the parts of the projects

That was my initial thought too! With the completion of an individuals work it should be posted here directly and not via private emails.

Maybe just a separete forum for authors? Here (it depends on Christian) or anywhere. What do you think about it?

pdavit wrote: > It would be also nice to have multilanguage version of the manual (for the reasons I wrote at the beginning).

True but first things first.

True...

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2003-07-06, 10:21 UTC

pdavit wrote:What would you say if us, the users, of TC create a pdf manual?

Hmmm, interesting idea. Could you explain though why you believe that it would be any different from TCmd's help? You can find almost everything you want in there. What would make the PDF file better than TCmd's help?

IMHO, every user would like to have a step-by-step explanation of the procedure he must follow in order to perform a certain task. In other words, one thing that would make the PDF better than the help would be some examples.

If the idea is to create a reorganized version of the Help with some examples in it, instead of creating a PDF, wouldn't it be better to ask Christian if he is willing to give the users the permission to copy and alter information from the help file in order to create a new version of it? What i mean is that instead of creating a PDF, let's re-create the help file the way we think it's best, including all possible options TCmd has with examples and whatever else we think would be nice. Then if Christian likes it, he might include it in a future version of TCmd.

pdavit · Post by *pdavit » 2003-07-06, 13:41 UTC

wanderer wrote:Could you explain though why you believe that it would be any different from TCmd's help? You can find almost everything you want in there. What would make the PDF file better than TCmd's help?

I'm currently working on a document that can be embedded within the final pdf manual about the Directory Hotlist feature. It's not far from completion and I will post here. You can then compare the help file info with what's included there and make your own decision if this project is useful or not. I personally believe it will be. Now, if the end result is finally embedded within the help file of TC, that's fine by me. If following that, the pdf becomes obsolete it won't really matter to me since I will know that I took part in improving TC's help file. In addition I will be helped as well since I'm far from perfecting every single feature of TC!

djk · Post by *djk » 2003-07-06, 13:54 UTC

I also think that it's not going to be a copy of original manual.
IMO it should be rather something like:
- TC - more then you expect.
- Why dou you use another tools to do something - you have TC.
- Everything You Always Wanted to Know About TC

- TC - practical usage
etc...

PDF - it can be other format, I think the contents is important, not format.

Innuendo · Post by *Innuendo » 2003-07-06, 16:24 UTC

pdavit,

Brilliant idea! I really hope this idea moves forward as I just *know* I'm missing out on half of TC's undocumented/well-hidden commands...

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2003-07-07, 07:45 UTC

djk wrote:PDF - it can be other format, I think the contents is important, not format.

You're right. I just pointed out that if it is created in a help-file format, it could (at some point and if Cristian wishes so) replace the original TC help. Even if he doesn't like the idea, if it could be made to respond the same way as TC's help (pressing F1 on something opens the help page related to it), whoever wishes could easily use it instead of the original help.

wanderer · Post by *wanderer » 2003-07-07, 08:15 UTC

pdavit wrote:I'm currently working on a document that can be embedded within the final pdf manual about the Directory Hotlist feature. It's not far from completion and I will post here. You can then compare the help file info with what's included there and make your own decision if this project is useful or not.

I'm not saying it will not be useful, i just think that the help file contains almost all info that exist about TCmd, it just doesn't seem well organized and detailed sometimes. IMHO, creating a more detailed help-file responsive to F1 like TCmd does, would be more useful than creating a manual-like document.

I assume you know the term RTFM, right?

This term exists simply because users usually try to discover things by "exploring" a program and tend to use the manual only as a last solution to a problem (how many people will read a VCR's manual before installing it?

). In all programs though, everybody uses the help frequently because it provides on-demand help on the exact item he wishes, unlike the manual.

Post by *ghisler(Author) » 2003-07-07, 09:27 UTC

Sounds like an interesting project! Perhaps it would be better to use HTML instead of PDF, though. This could be an online help, like this one (experimental):
http://help.ghisler.ch/

Geoffrey · Post by *Geoffrey » 2003-07-07, 10:33 UTC

I agree this would be an interesting project, and (I didn't check yet, but...) it could start from the online help Christian mentioned.
IMO, the best would be to use a new forum for it, so that everyone feeling concerned can participate.
We might define 'stricter' rules on that forum, like having a moderator, or things like that, to make sure it remains focused on its main topic.
This would have the additional advantage that native English speakers (or people with an excellent knowledge of English) could correct mistakes of others.

Regards,
Geoffrey