Re: [Gaim-devel] gaim manual

[Tim R. <om...@ho...>]

Here are my notes, page by page, on the documentation. Some of this may 
just be nitpicking, and some of it I'm not sure on. I'm reading the html 
version in my browser, not the .xml file I noticed, if it makes a 
difference.

First page:
"Gaim is the GNOME Instant messaging and chat application."
Is this true? Maybe it is (from GNOME's perspective), I'm not sure. 
Internally, Gaim doesn't depend on or use GNOME libraries, however (just 
GTK).

ICQ isn't listed in the list of protocols (except on the AIM line). I 
think it probably deserves its own line, since it's given its own 
section on the next page. Also it has it's own home page (www.icq.com).

Also you use the word "protocol" but don't actually define the term 
until the next page.

"Gaim is a free software" I don't think 'a' goes in there.

Page 2:

"Before you can use IM, you should register with one of the IM services, 
such as AOL Messenger (AIM/ICQ) or MSN Messenger."
Shouldn't it be "AOL Instant Messenger" instead of just "AOL messenger"?
Also, shouldn't we promote a free and open protocol on this line, like 
Jabber?

"For example, the channel #gaim on the server irc.freenode.net is 
devoted to discussion of Gaim, so this is the place to ask questions you 
might have about Gaim." You don't explicity mention that we're talking 
about IRC here.

"At the moment, there are many competing IM services using diufferent 
standards" different doesn't have a "u" in it.

"If you want to talk to people who use AOL Messenger (AIM/ICQ), you need 
to get an account with AIM as well. However, you can use the same 
program, Gaim for talking with people using MSN and people using AIM, 
and any of the other protocols listed below."
As an exception to this rule, you can actually send messages from an AOL 
account to an ICQ account, and vise versa, as long as the other end's 
client is new enough to support that.
Also you might want to clarify that you have to have an account on each 
protocol you want to talk to people on.


"The list below shows all IM and chat protocols supported by Gaim and 
instructions on registering for each of them." If you want to be 
technical, we have protocol plugins for a few other protocols, some are 
3rd party, and some just aren't compiled by default (like Trepia).
It's also worth noting that TOC isn't on this list. If it were on the 
list, it would need to include a warning not to use it.

Under AIM:
There's several other ways to get a AIM screen name. If you ever 
registered to download netscape for example, you already have an AIM 
screen name.

Under ICQ:
I believe ICQ stands for "I Seek You". The company you make reference to 
was called Mirabilis, or something like that.

Some people might dispute your "not widely used" claim about jabber.

There's some sort of OpenNap 3rd party napster server that Gaim 
apparently supports. Although I'm not aware of anyone who uses it.


" Any IM user is identified by his "screen name", or account name."
In ICQ this is called an UIN (universial identification number). You're 
assertion that UINs are 8 digit is wrong, mine is only 7 for example.
The term User Id is sometimes used for screen name too. Or stuff like 
"Yahoo! Id".

Msn seems to call nicknames "friendly name"s, and you can set them to 
whatever you want.

On some protocols you won't see anyone's nick unless you Get Info on 
them first.


Page 3:

" Finally, make sure that your computer is connected to the Internet" 
Technically you could use Gaim with a jabber server or irc server or 
something, on a local lan, without being connected to the internet.


"This toolbar, placed between the message window and the input window, 
can be used to change font size, face, and color, use bold or italic for 
part of the message, and so on. See the Section called /Fonts, Smileys, 
and Spellchecking/ 
<http://www.alphamonkey.org/gdp/files/gaim-manual-1.0/gaim-manual-html-1.0/x338.html#gaim-formatting> 
below."
If the formatting toolbar is grayed out, or items in it are grayed it, 
it means either Gaim doesn't support sending formatting on that protocol 
yet, or the protocol itself doesn't support us sending formatting.

Actions Toolbar
The contents of his toolbar are mostly different in chat's.
Warn is an AIM only concept. I'll let someone else explain it, it might 
be in the FAQ, or in AIM's FAQ.

"Each of these buttons will create a pair of HTML tags; e.g., *Bold* 
button will insert in your message tags <B> </B>. The text to be made 
bold should be entered between these tags" With WYSIWYG support, this is 
no longer true, but the text actually shows up as Bold.

Insert Image is only supported on AIM right now. And in fact I think 
it's currently completely broken.

For tab colors:
You left out Blue, which means someone said your name in a chat.
Gray happens whenever anything that isn't an message happens (isn't 
important enough to turn the tab red.).
One of those things is the user signed off message. But another one is 
the user signed on message. Or the user closed the conversation window 
on msn.


"To save the conversation log to a file, select *File*->*Save as*. If 
you quit Gaim without saving logs to a file, these logs are lost and can 
not be retrieved later. FIXME: is this correct??"
I think Luke already covered this, but saving the buffer is 
conceptionally different than logging. If logging is on, things are 
automaticly saved to certain files (which can be viewed by the log view 
built into Gaim in most cases). Saving the buffer saves the current 
contents of the backlog to a file you specify (which can be done whether 
or not logging is on).

Transfering files:
See the FAQ entry for this.
To send a file, right click on someone in the buddy list and select send 
file. If send file isn't there, we don't support that (or sometimes the 
other end doesn't support it in the case of jabber i think).
The file transfer dialog in the Tools menu only allows you to view the 
progress of file transfers, not initiate them.


I'll try to comment on the rest later.

--Tim Ringenbach