RiscOS 5 user guide

Hi,

Is the pdf version of the user guide available to download anywhere or will it only be for people who buy the paper version?

The links to the draft no longer work so I assume there’s some restriction?

Cheers

Gareth

Since no one from ROOL has replied to your question here, I think you are right.

At present the RISC OS 5 User Guide issue 1 April 2018 is available only in print form from here

And while we’re on the subject, please note that anyone may make suggestions towards the next issue of the RISC OS 5 User Guide (which will likely occur to coincide with some future stable release).

For corrections to the current guide, whether of mistakes or to be consistent with changes to the OS and its apps, email your suggestions to the editor via manuals@rool (substitute correct address) and/or update this wiki page which has been cleared of its previous and now redundant content.

Remember also that improvements which necessitate a software change may be better handled by raising an Enhancement Ticket in the Bug Tracker from which a documentation change might arise.

For corrections to the current guide, whether of mistakes or to be consistent with changes to the OS and its apps, email your suggestions to the editor.

I think the query from Gareth has highlighted an issue – dead trees may not be the preferred format for some users of the guide.
Certainly the printed form of any document is far harder to search through for specific items and the only way of improving that is an index bigger than the rest of the guide.
Conversely, the paper version doesn’t “run out of battery”

In answering the query I think you’ve highlighted another aspect of the “paper only” status in that the most likely people to need the guide are new users who wouldn’t know immediately, if at all, that anything was wrong, while those that don’t really need it don’t have a copy and can’t comment on the correct/incorrect status.

Solution? Unknown.

I find manuals as PDF difficult to read. I prefer printed matter to reference. But, there are times when a PDF is preferable (and easier to find and store).

My suggestion would be for those that purchase the guide to supply either printed or PDF, or both, and have the purchaser specify which format they would like.

When we bought RISC OS and then gave it away to the community under the new licence, we requested that the same occur with the manual (ie. PDF manual should come free with the OS).

In RISC OS Developments’ opinion, new users shouldn’t be charged to see how to use RISC OS. Indeed, the cost of the printed manual is higher than any Castle licence fee ever was!

We’d ask the community to support this viewpoint – a PDF manual should be included in the Documents folder as standard, just like Acorn did from 3.7 onwards (well, they used !Bookworm + HTML).

That doesn’t prevent paper manuals being sold – indeed, a lot of people will prefer that – but it ensures that the information is free to those who need it.

In RISC OS Developments’ opinion, new users shouldn’t be charged to see how to use RISC OS. Indeed, the cost of the printed manual is higher than any Castle licence fee ever was!

There’s nothing to stop the hardware developers paying for a manual to go with each machine, as I seem to recall Elesar are doing with Titanium motherboards, of course. That way, ROOL don’t lose their funding stream, users get a nice paper manual, and everyone is happy… :-)

ETA: Yes, it’s an option, but an option that costs the buyer nothing AFAICS.

and everyone is happy… :-)

Those who build their own setups like NOOBS or the SD card image?

I agree with Andrew, PDF manuals should be available to all, with paper copies sold to those who prefer the dead trees.
Or, to put it another way – doesn’t it seem crazy that the SD image contains all the volumes of an old incarnation of the technical reference manuals, but basically nothing about how to actually use the system? That a new user can learn about old maps and new maps and assembler level details of how to create a filing system, but not how to quit an application? Or, depending on their experience, how to access menus? Or change screen mode to something sensible? Or how to manipulate windows (it’s like, but at the same time different to) Windows, Linux, etc.

Indeed, the cost of the printed manual is higher than any Castle licence fee ever was!

A (potentially large) part of that will be in the printing. An A5 book of 600 pages will cost €13.80 at Lulu.com. You can fiddle with the prices at http://www.lulu.com/create/books
However,if it is a special size, special cover paper (etc etc etc) then those all push the prices up. I vaguely recall that the RO3 user guide was sort of squarish?

Still, at least I discovered that I can make a small book for under four euros. Of course, if I want to have it available anywhere… http://www.lulu.com/sell and while the example on the left is £9,99 in the UK, it’s €13,99 in France. Hmm… This stuff isn’t easy!

There’s nothing to stop the hardware developers paying for a manual to go with each machine,

I carefully avoided suggesting any financial change – I don’t like other people telling me how to spend money so it’s only reasonable that I refrain as well.

I was also under the impression that the cost of the paper manual was reflective of the print and distribution cost. Would ROOL be losing anything significant by following the Risc OS Developments wishes?

I vaguely recall that the RO3 user guide was sort of squarish?

The original Archimedes manuals had a page size of 21cm x 20cm, and the spiral binding meant that the outer cover measured 21cm x 21.7cm.

The page sizes of the RO3.0 user guide, the RO3.5 user guide and the RO5 user guide aren’t as square (23cm x 19cm) and in fact are almost exactly the same as an O’Really O’Reilly manual (9.1″ × 7″) so it isn’t that weird a paper size.

Just to be crystal clear, I don’t believe the printed manual is over-priced in any way for what it is (short-run, thick books cost big money – that’s how it is). Just as I always felt Castle’s licence fees were more than fair. However, both present(ed) a barrier to new use of RISC OS, so open source versions remove that barrier.

As Steve says, commercial suppliers can do their own thing, but very few new users will buy a 500+ pound computer vs first trying open-source RISC OS on a Pi. At the very least, those users should have access to the documentation – frankly it should be stuck to the pinboard (ideally with big flashing arrows)!

As an aside, I always liked the shorter “Welcome Guide” supplied with the A3000 etc too – it was less scary for newcomers than the giant manual.

The A3000 “Welcome Guide” was indeed very good, IMHO a lot better than the RO2 and RO3 User Guide. Maybe the community could come up with a “Welcome Guide for Windows users” and a “Welcome Guide for MacOS users”? I’ll provide the German translation!

There is now a “Beginner’s concepts” section at the front of the OS 5 User Guide, with 8 chapters. I believe that this is the same information that was previously in the Welcome Guide, with the exception of the hardware-specific bits.

With that said, I think it’d be useful to at least have the basics as a free PDF.

With that said, I think it’d be useful to at least have the basics as a free PDF

Certainly agree with that.
Probably flesh it out a little.