[Plone-docs] suggestions for plone site documentation from a newbie

[John B. <pl...@jo...>]

Hi,
My comments are not about documentation in general, but rather about
the documentation on the plone site in particular.

I'm about as new a newbie as you can get, and I had some difficulties
that I think would be easy to overcome.  It's possible that other
prospective users might have some of the same problems.

When I learn about a new technology I read and flounder and read some
more.  I often skim, looking for things with names like "tutorial" and
"manual".  I think twice before clicking on a link because even
though I have a fast connection, it's never fast enough, and I don't
want to wait.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to find the "Plone Book".
Although it is a very clever name, it was not obvious to me that it
was the manual.  Here are some things that you could do to make it
easier for other newbies like me.

On the MAIN PLONE PAGE (plone.org)

1) in the first paragraph of the plone.org home page, you could
    mention it, as in, "The main source of documentation is called
    'The Plone Book'.  The Plone Book is the Manual."

2) you could have a link from that text to: 
http://plone.org/documentation/book

On the Documentation Page (http://plone.org/documentation/)

3) When I visit the documentation page and look at the navigation box
    to the left of the screen, I don't see an entry for  'The Manual:
    the plone book'.  There could be one, and it could say something
    more informative than Plone Book.  Remember, to the cognoscenti,
    it's obvious, but to a newbie, Plone book is meaningless, or
    worse. When I was at the Documentation page and saw Plone Book, I
    thought the Documentation page WAS the plone book.

4) The text that goes with the link to the Plone Book is "Online
    version".  The phrase "Online version" didn't mean much to me.  Most 
links
    are online versions. "The Manual, aka Plone Book" would have made
    more sense to me.

On the Page of Chapter 1 of the Plone Book
(http://plone.org/documentation/book/1)

5) It's not obvious to me how to go from chapter 1 to chapter 2
    without first going up to the top level of the plone book.  Can it
    be done?

Sincerely,
John Bear