[MPlayer-users] DOCS rewrite?

[clemenswaechter]

> Gabucino is about rewritting/reorganizing mplayer documentation.
> So, hey, it's time to tell him your suggestions, especially about the
> structure of docs (new Table Of Contents, adding/removing sections etc).
> 
> If you felt docs unclean, redundant, missunderstandable, tell now what
> and how to change!

I think that it would be great to write the docs according to mplayers
structure.

So I would create a part called "Video input" and write everything about
the input
codecs. I would include a special section about the installation (what is
compiled
in and what is loaded on demand, a word about the codecs.conf), some
techinfo
how it works and how Windoze codecs can work unter *nix, advantages and
disadvantages
of the codecs ( ffdivx vs. divx4 vs. opendivx vs. xvid vs. divx3 vs divx
deux) to avoid
confusion. 
A word about the different video formats could also be great.

I know that most of this is not mplayer specific but if you understand all
this
you can imho handle mplayer much better and understand its behaviour. 
Not to mention mencoder ( see wmv to avi issue with the framerate)

Since all this is the same for mplayer and mencoder you can make one
section about
video and sound input, then begin a new chapter and describe video output.

IMHO it isn`t bad at all if it is somewhat redundant if you find all infos
to a given section
contained at one place.
This means if you create a mencoder section it could also contain all infos
about
video input 


In the end, what would I change (to get a clear structure in my own email,
in
which I failed, I know this structure is rock bottom) ?
1. Create one big section video input and include the info about
Tv input, dvd and vcd input and the codecs in it.
2. Do the same with video output, include TV-Out and stuff about
file writing and so on
3. strip above info from the player docu and put it in the top-level
docu since this is the same for mplayer and mencoder
4. create a much better and more detailed docu
5. The faq2 is nice to read and its really funny but please
write a warning for pleople who are easily upset und mark
it as a joke... not that I myself am bothered I had great fun reading it
6. Change something about the \"And what is "Faszom(C)ounter" ?\"
entry in the faq. It took me quite some time to find a web page that
would translate "Fasz" for me... I understand why you would not
like to have a translation in your faq but as I said it makes you
couriuos what it means in the end....

Well I think you got the idea

Well I know the documentation is yet almost like I described
but anyways, TFM (which of course stands for "the fine manual", 
I hope you never thought anything else about RTFM.... ;-) ) was never
that bad as people thought. Simply most people are too lazy and 
are expecting the developers to do the thinking for them...

As for the format I think HTML is ok but if I were the one who had
to write the docu I would stick to plain text. Because you can
view it with a browser, too and you do not need any bloated
program in order to view it. I guess its best to use plain text
and html (for the online docu) 

I know you could critisize my opinions but thats my flavour.
But I guess I can cope with any format for the documentation
so don't write it for me, write it for the rest of the users, these
are just my 2.5 cents.

Clemens Wächter


> 
> he is most interested in the structure of the new docs. So if you have
> ideas, don't keep them back!
Writing E-Mail with my ideas included 								[done]
> 
> A'rpi / Astral & ESP-team
> 
> --
> Developer of MPlayer, the Movie Player for Linux -
> http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu
> 
> _______________________________________________
> RTFM!!!  http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/DOCS
> Search:  http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch
> http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users

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