Thunderbird:Thunderbird3:UserDocs

What should be done regarding changes to user documentation for Thunderbird 3?

Notes on this page (Thunderbird 3 User Docs)

Definition of User Docs

"User Documentation" will stand here for all the sources and resources that inform a user about Thuderbird usage or simply help the user achieve a goal using this software.

Generally it regards help, tutorial, support, feedback, usage issues, but it may go for even general information or terminology used, impressions, or more abstract things related to the user experience and communication with user.

There is another side of the documentation, the developers one, that I (ovidiu)cannot dive into that, but could be attaked in the same place/manner here.

Goals of this page

in the beginning the goals may just be analytic:

• To collect Thunderbird documentation locations and sources
• To comment and share opinion on those sources
• To eventually get an image of the work/state of documentation, help, etc.

Structure the input/collected data

I think the structure will come from comments and opinion. First is enough if set couple of major 'tags':User, Dev, Help(Support), Tutorial, Review(inform), and others if you like..

Ideas on the general support environment for Thunderbird should go on the discussion page here

Sources for user documentation

!!list of help resources (TB along with Other Moz) is very well presented at http://ilias.ca/

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TB main web page (first information)[user, info] http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/features

TB menu-help goes to (expected to gather most of it?)[user, dev, info, support, tutorial][more to comment here..] http://www.mozilla.org/support/thunderbird/

TB oldest an maybe most visited resource with subpages directly fot TB http://www.mozillazine.org/ [lot to comment on that..]

newsgroups at mozilla [there are some confussions there, in terms of which group to ask, from the user side, ending up with some frustration eventually] [google groups linked to those too. A good source where if just searching the web show up as results on specific topic..]

http://ubuntuforums.org search in that; probably other distro forums or alike

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http://www.ts-cyberia.net/thunderbird.html

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http://opensourcearticles.com/articles/thunderbird_faq http://opensourcearticles.com/articles/introduction_to_thunderbird http://opensourcearticles.com/articles/articles/thunderbird_15/english/part_01 [kinda obsolete..2005.. may be a source or model for completing the help?] http://texturizer.net/thunderbird dead link, but can find lots of links for it (obsolete..)

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see http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/archives/2007/11/survey_results_out.html question 3 [comments on that:??]

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Help_Documentation:Base [is this an ongoing process..? note: This (user doc) is not intened to duplicate this link. At least I(ov) consider this just a part of the process..]

[more to come.. more to be studied from those domains above.. more to ask..]

Undergoing work on support

This is about undergoing work on help or support, even if old, frozen, forgotten projects.

'''the help/support project(s)'''

Help as offline documentation was and is put together in several places like this:

Thunderbird Help Documentation http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Help_Documentation:Base is ongoing, status unclear to me..

Help-viewer , for FF, TB, SM see http://www.mozilla.org/projects/help-viewer/ a help viewer present in FF and SM, asking for help for TB

Interim Help for Thunderbird (as pointed by Chris Ilias) see http://interimhelp4tbird.mozdev.org/ a help 'viewer' as extension

Also as bugs: Get Help Viewer working - bug 253334 - Jeff Walden

Also as bugs http://ilias.ca/blog/2008/01/re-organizing-mozillaorgsupport/ + bug 353478

other bugs

Structure for User Documentation Proposal

Ideas on the (offline) help to be discussed in dev groups or other..

First proposal scheme

Other ideas may fall on the discussion page. Here is The place for discuss Ideas on TB help I may gather some later

from RFE, groups etc.

from other places

External resources

examples of other projects, mozilla or not, related or not

Mozilla

http://blog.mozilla.com/sumo

http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/MDC:How_to_Help developers ...

Non mozilla