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OOTP 14 - General Discussions Discuss the new 2013 version of Out of the Park Baseball here! |
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12-15-2013, 01:42 PM | #1 |
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The "let's improve the OOTP manual" thread
Hello OOTP Citizens:
I now have access to edit the OOTP 14 manual. I have some manual writing experience for Nuance and Freeverse, along with some related experience for Apple, so I said I'd jump in and help improve the manual where I could. I know I've seen comments along the lines of "This isn't documented properly in the manual," or "This should be in the manual," so I'd like to use this thread for everyone to post what they'd like to see in the manual. What do we need to add? What do we need to change? I realize there's probably a lot of work to be done here, but if I start with the big stuff and do what I can here and there in between my other duties, maybe we can whip this into shape in time for OOTP 15. Thanks! - Brad |
12-15-2013, 02:00 PM | #2 |
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Would you be able to take submissions in typical word processing formats ie Microsoft Office and put them in the manual? If you can, I may be able to help out. I have considerable experience writing technical documentation, specifications, work instructions etc.
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12-15-2013, 02:57 PM | #3 |
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One obvious place to start is the manual's section on storylines, the entire content of which is "no content yet."
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12-15-2013, 05:38 PM | #4 |
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Great Idea.
Might I suggest a look at both the Pitching Staff and Lineups pages. They no longer relate to 14 with the improvements over previous versions. And, now that you've asked, I'll have a look for other items. Good luck with the project. |
12-16-2013, 01:20 AM | #5 |
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Wiki?
Have you considered making the manual a wiki? That way established members of the community could help edit the manual to make sure things that aren't covered are.
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12-16-2013, 01:41 AM | #6 | ||
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Quote:
/fail My two bits: ask here and in the newbie forum what people have the most trouble understanding in the game and do those first. It makes more sense to me than updating stuff that's intuitive.
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12-16-2013, 03:57 AM | #7 | |
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Quote:
You can write new manual pages in MS Word. But they would have to be converted into HTML. MS Word uses special characters for quotation marks and dashes which would need to be converted. If I would have to do it, I would copy the whole text from MS Word into an editor like notepad.exe. Then I would manually insert br tags for every line break and all the other tags. Tables are some extra work. It's doable, but obviously it would be much better to write HTML code instead of using MS Word. To see which HTML tags we're using for the manual pages, open them in the browser and use the "View page source code" feature of the browser. This is a list of the tags: h5 for head lines a for links table, tr, td for tables p for paragraphs. Do not use div! b for bold and i for italic ol, ul, li for lists img for images Thanks for any help! It's much appreciated Last edited by Andreas Raht; 12-16-2013 at 03:58 AM. |
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12-16-2013, 06:28 PM | #8 |
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this
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12-17-2013, 05:09 PM | #9 |
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I also have some documentation experience and am happy to help out. One thing that immediately springs to mind is how dated a lot of the screenshots are. I can go through it over the holidays and make a list of screenshots that need updating.
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12-17-2013, 05:32 PM | #10 | |
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Quote:
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...al-thread.html (I believe this thread is still somewhat to mostly accurate in its observations) http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ed-manual.html http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...pleteness.html Also, please see this post from a well-meaning soul whose ambitious thread unfortunately devolved into stuff and nonsense; he mentions three blank pages in the online manual: http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...57-post41.html
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- Bru Last edited by Déjà Bru; 12-17-2013 at 05:37 PM. |
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12-18-2013, 06:41 AM | #11 |
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Thanks! That would be great. If you make screenshots, please keep the dimension and the file name (which is case-sensitive). You could upload them as a ZIP archive to our support FTP file space. Please send me an email with the name of the archive.
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12-18-2013, 05:06 PM | #12 |
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Will do!
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01-03-2014, 09:38 PM | #13 |
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This is great news! My recommendation for OOTP 15 was to have a more thorough game manual. Thanks for making the game even better!
Jason ABL Commissioner ADULT BASEBALL LEAGUE :: ADULT BASEBALL LEAGUE |
01-04-2014, 06:28 PM | #14 |
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I am not sure how many other OOTP members would agree with this idea however, I think it would be great if OOTP created and published a PDF version of the game manual.
If my memory serves me correctly a PDF game manual has not been available since OOTP9 and alot has changed since then. I feel that a updated PDF manual would make a real nice asset to this series since currently the only way to view the manual is for a game owner to be connected to the internet. |
01-04-2014, 09:42 PM | #15 | |
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Quote:
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01-06-2014, 03:31 AM | #16 |
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If we had a tool which would convert hundreds of HTML pages into a PDF file, we would do it. I made two attempts to convert the HTML pages into PDF and tried several both free and commercial tools, but I was not able to automate the process
I could add a feature to the online manual database which generates a single HTML page containing the whole manual in the right order of pages. All the headlines are structured using h2, h3, h4 (and so on) tags, so a tool could easily generate an index with links to the sections... |
01-06-2014, 07:30 PM | #17 | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
Well, we are talking about a PDF version, at least, as you can see from the above.
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01-06-2014, 07:37 PM | #18 |
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I agree with updating the manual. It does need updating. I would offer to help but i havent got around to actually reading it yet.
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01-26-2014, 07:25 PM | #19 |
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Now is the time to move ahead on this project because OOTPB 15 has been announced with even more features to be documented. We don't want to fall too far behind.
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01-27-2014, 10:23 AM | #20 |
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We need to make sure the SCOUTING area shows what other other options need to be chosen in order for it to work effectively.
One thing I stumbled upon is you need to click create and maintain hidden players so your scout has something to go out and look for
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