RISC OS User Guide PDF

While I’ve found the html version of the User Guide for RISC OS 3.7 at http://www.riscos.com/support/users/userguide3/bookb/userguide.html, does anyone know of a PDF version? A text-based version (like the great PRM PDFs that are available with the DDE) would be preferred, but a scanned version would still be highly preferable to the html version. If there isn’t a PDF now, does anyone know whether there are (FrameMaker?) source files for the User Manual that could be made into a PDF? Who would be the right contact person regarding the files and rights for such a project? Thanks very much for any help.

They’re in the Documents directory on the Release Candidate 12 of RiscOS for Pi.

All I see in the beta hard disk image Documents folder is a Music folder. Am I looking at the wrong file? The RC12 ROM file is just that — a ROM file. Thanks very much. I am looking at files available on https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/other-zipfiles. Is there an RC12 SD image somewhere that I should be looking at? Thanks again.

Strange. I have Books, Images, Other & Welcome as well as Music.

Where did you download your RC12 image? Could you zip your Documents directory and upload it to dropbox or google drive so that those of us without those files could download them?

Bah. I’m misremembering. I’m using RC11, not 12. I’m not aware of anywhere but ROOL to get these things – I guess the RC11 still here has the PRMs in it?

I think maybe we’re miscommunicating — I’m not looking for the PRMs, I have those already: I am looking for a PDF version of the User Guide for the 3.x series of RISC OS. An html version of what I’m looking for is available at http://www.riscos.com/support/users/userguide3/bookb/userguide.html and a print version is available at http://www.cjemicros.co.uk/micros/individual/newprodpages/prodinfo.php?prodcode=ACO-RPCDOC — but I can’t find a PDF version (either a scanned image PDF or a text-based PDF). Does anyone know of a PDF version or have the source documents that produced the html files (maybe these are FrameMaker files)? I would work on converting the source documents to PDF and share that with the community. Thank you very much.

Bah again. My fault entirely. Miscommunication at one end only. I have at least one print copy, possibly several (not sure whether I’ve kept more than one) – but quite a job to scan it!
I might or might not make it to Wakefield – if you’ll be there I could bring one if I’ve got a spare. Indeed I could bring all my spare docs if I’ve still got any, for anyone who might like them.

I think 3QD/Virtual Acorn (Aaron Timbrell) will own the rights to these. I don’t think you can produce a version and make it available without permission. I do know there is a project to produce a new updated Welcome Guide—isn’t Chris Evans of CJE co-ordinating that?

An interesting exchange of views about copyright:

http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=717

Hmmm… Given the content of posts by a user called “VirtualAcorn” on Drobe¹, I think any such statement needs to be replied with:

[ http://xkcd.com/285/ ]

¹ Fascinating reading.

Citation needed (link)

Indeed.

The assertion that the content is copyright is correct, who owns the copyright is probably an interesting¹ debate but to assert that the act of changing the publication format puts the rights in the hands of the person carrying out the change is one that should give a few legal people reason to laugh until they wet themselves.

¹ Where interesting probably has to be something of interest to a warped mind².

² Hello

I do know there is a project to produce a new updated Welcome Guide—isn’t Chris Evans of CJE co-ordinating that?

http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/meetings/2014/jan.html

Hello

…I’m your mind
Giving you someone
To talk to
Hello

http://youtu.be/fxL4ElIGcpE

[and if you don’t want to sleep tonight – http://youtu.be/70JsYwES7DE – of course it is random interpretation, but some parts are so spooky it is astonishing]

…I’m your mind
Giving you someone
To talk to
Hello

Glad you wrote that down, things sometimes get lost in the crowd noise.

We initiated an update to the Welcome Guide¹. It was then pointed out that the User Guide was also in need of updating and Bernard Boase volunteered to head that up. We obtained the relevant permissions and have now handed the ‘User Guide’ project over to Bernard who is going to feed the results back to ROOL.
Thank you Bernard.
Non programmers who want to help RISC OS can easily do so.
Many pages need no updating for RISC OS 5 and a very effective way for them would be to identify those pages.
If you can help drop me an email to ******* and I’ll pass them on to Bernard.

¹ Re the Welcome guide: We decided in the end that a simple ‘Start-Up Guide’ was the main need for PandaRO & RaspberryRO purchasers and have done one for them.

Chris Evans is correct in saying that I have taken on a role in developing a RISC OS 5 User Guide, though progress is slow when I and other volunteers are busy with other things. Its style and content are modelled on Acorn’s printed OS 3.6 User Guide, but is entirely in HTML to HTML 4.01 Strict/CSS level 3 standards. It has been publicly discussed during ROOL’s theatre presentation at the London show last October, and again at January’s ROUGOL meeting.

With reference to that exchange of views between Chris Hall and Aaron Timbrell, ROL’s conversion from Framemaker to HTML for the 3.7 User Guide now at riscos.com is quite clumsy in file structure, does not validate even as HTML 4.01 Transitional, and is of course considerably out of date for RISC OS 5 both in whole chapters and in details.

Aaron said there “Documenting RISC OS 5 is a great idea, but please don’t use any of the content/design from the RISC OS 3/4/6 documentation.” All I can add is that some of the words will be identical or similar where the software functionality has remained identical or similar. Chris Evans says that the relevant permissions have been obtained, so I am confident that any effort I put in, or encourage others to put in, will be classifiable as shared source, hosted by ROOL and maintained by anyone interested (just like the code).

You can get a flavour of similarities and differences by comparing these PDF versions of the new and old chapters on SciCalc:

(1) The latest version for the RISC OS 5 User Guide is here showing improvements such as stating application version, showing the new window layout and Choices dialogue, and with correct typography for symbols.

(2) The riscos.com 3.7 version (dated January 1997) is here

By the way, @acme, an HTML page can be converted to PDF using either, say, Chrome’s Print function, or with RISC OS by exporting HTML from Netsurf as Drawfile then printing with Hilary Phillips’ DrawPrint plus Steve Fryatt’s PrintPDF. So the RISC OS 3.7 User Guide from riscos.com can be converted to PDF by anyone. I used Chrome to create the two PDF files referred to above.

The latest version for the RISC OS 5 User Guide is here showing improvements such as stating application version, showing the new window layout and Choices dialogue, and with correct typography for symbols.

On the subject of layout – could you amend the floating heading effect?

In reading/understanding terms it works better if the heading is closer to the associated text¹. A lot of web based stuff floats the header confusingly halfway between two paragraphs. RISC OS should do things better than the average.
Probably just a CSS tweak.

That small thing said, the new layout is better than the old style. I note the “old” is a capture of the riscos.com version rather than an old Acorn version (the modernisation² between those two appears to be the removal of one logo and insertion of another although without digging out that antique electronic copy of the guide for a memory refresh I could be wrong)

¹ Some people might recall that Paul Beverley of Archive not only promoted but sold a text on DTP³, which is where that bit among others first came to my attention.

² I hadn’t looked closely before but the web content shows evidence of some fairly rough hack and change. Mind you they could have left it off line to the detriment of all. For the user the text content is probably the most important bit.

³ I seem to recall the name Robin Williams (no not the actor) aah, googled: “Non-designers design book” there’s even a web related version from 2005 and a 2008 version of the original. Where’s my original -

I think I should have a copy somewhere about too – I might even be able to find it!

I think I should have a copy somewhere about too – I might even be able to find it!

I refreshed my memory of the content with a peek at the Amazon preview.
Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity. :)

Proximity is the web issue.

Didn’t look for it immediately, doing something else…have now, and the thing I was thinking of of was Rob Pickering’s DTP At a Glance… yes, I know, nothing like Robin Williams’s book…
Got piles of other books on page layout, typography etc. (worked in publishing for years) but nowt about web design. Entirely self-taught in that, and no doubt it shows on my website – as no doubt does the fact that I produce my web pages by typing html straight into a text editor…I suppose that’s the same kind of nutcasery that makes me prefer to write programs in BASIC and assembler, straight into a text editor (!Zap)…

I seem to recall the name Robin Williams (no not the actor) aah, googled: “Non-designers design book”

Mine is sat on my bookshelves here, along with a couple of her other books. Excellent works for reference.

that I produce my web pages by typing html straight into a text editor

Snap.

My web pages might be less glossy and “enticing” than some, but I try to make the markup simple, uncomplicated, and able to look correct on the widest range of browsers.
For the things I write, the content is the important part. Text, pictures. Markup is simply adding styling to it. There is a danger in overcomplicating… So I prefer to write by hand.

This is a bit of an old thread, but I’ve been wondering about a RISC OS 5 user guide and decided to do a bit of reading… and have found that a couple of the comments on the VirtualAcorn forum don’t seem to add up.

Please be aware that no one else can give you permission to base your proposed RISC OS 5 documentation [on] the RISC OS 3 [manual].

Not true of course. I am sure that you are aware that Castle have the necessary rights, whether you like to acknowledge them or not.

The HTML/PDF versions of the Acorn Computers Ltd documentation was commisioned and paid for by RISCOS Ltd.

But that doesn’t seem to make sense. Wikipedia (admittedly not the most reliable of sources) states that RISCOS Ltd was founded in 1999. However, there is an HTML version of the 3.7 user guide included in the “37DiscImage” on the 4corn site (which was apparently cloned directly from Acorn’s FTP in 1998, and if I’m not mistaken 3.7 itself was released in 1996).

That means that the HTML version of the guide predates ROL, so how can it have been “commissioned and paid for” by them? I think I have to agree with Rick’s xkcd reference! :)

—

In any case, it seems that there have been a couple of attempts at updating the user guide but it doesn’t seem like either of them have made it through to a conclusion (please correct me if I’m wrong). It’d be great to have something ready by the time the Pi version goes “stable” and I’m half-tempted to try something myself, although to be honest I’d probably end up putting it on the back-burner too…

But that doesn’t seem to make sense. Wikipedia (admittedly not the most reliable of sources) states that RISCOS Ltd was founded in 1999. However, there is an HTML version of the 3.7 user guide included in the “37DiscImage” on the 4corn site (which was apparently cloned directly from Acorn’s FTP in 1998, and if I’m not mistaken 3.7 itself was released in 1996).

That’s the thing about many of the twisted timeline elements of the ROL story of how things went, some of us have copies of nice Acorn branded items like the StrongARM package and it’s accompanying OS release v.37 which prove the quotes to be wrong.
ROL may have commisioned an update for the RO4.02 release (I could have a dig, as any accompanying CD content will be in the same cupboard (of doom as Vince says)