Idea for competition - Help PDF

Idea for competition - Help PDF

Hi

Just had an Idea for a competition. Swizl and others are making the help into PDF's and I noticed that due to the fact that its taken from the in app help there is no front page, and its a continous document

How about a small competition to design 'cover pages'. One for the front, and then one for each 'Chapter'

The one for each chapter should somehow reflect the content of the chapter

So from what I can see we have

  • Cover Page
  • Introduction
  • User interface
  • Rendering
  • Animation
  • Objects
  • Tags
  • Tools
  • Scripting
  • Tutorials
  • Hints and Tips
  • Glossary of terms
Just an idea,

Graham
 
Ok, here's my rough stab at it. I'd like to create some of the elements in Cheetah to give more of a 3d appearance though. That and I'd like to lighten some of the colors. Would definitely welcome everyone else's entries or comments though!
 

Attachments

  • C3D Cover.jpg
    C3D Cover.jpg
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LOL yeah! If you shake your head really fast it is! Just kidding. I would do some of the 3d stuff later after a layout is finalized. Would most likely need help with those details too though from some of you pros. ;)
 
Yes exactly that idea! Would like to extrude the text also and then give it a slight arch so it gives some cool shadows. Waiting for any other entries too though. If any body else wants to give it a shot and has time, I'd like to see some other ideas too.

Here's a DropBox link to the ai file (saved back to v10 and zipped). It's 6.9MB in size. There are two linked images included. Anyone that wants to mod this file in any way, please feel free. If anyone can do some cool 3d stuff too that would be great.

P.S. The fonts match the Headline font used in the original HTML version of the manual. It's in the Myriad Pro font family. I can outline those if anyone doesn’t have the font and wants to do something with them.

I forgot to include the png logo in the zip. Can easily be found here.
 
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It seems to me like the best thing to put on the cover would be one or more of the best gallery pieces rather than something new.

I'd also suggest that the best way to create the document would be to render all the help files into a giant HTML or RTF file, not PDF, insert it into Pages, and then with a tiny bit of style magic you get a table of contents (and obviously headers, rooters, and so on). From there you can export to PDF if so desired.
 
Hi Podperson,

I'm fine with the gallery pieces being used or any other concepts anybody wants to try out. How would the specific gallery pieces be chosen though? By vote? If anybody wants to do a layout for that and then post it here, it would be most welcome.

I agree that we could do another version of the HTML if you want. I don't have much experience with working in HTML though and I don't have Pages (I work mostly with print media, hence my preference of pdf). If you can do that it would be cool with me, and could make the layout more dynamic. The big problem is to format it correctly from HTML to print all the pages on standard size paper. Like I said, HTML isn't my forté so I don't know how you would tell the HTML file to fit a letter size (or A4) and to also print all the linked pages. I posted the method I used to extract the Help Manual from the App Bundle (although you might already know how to do that) in the link given by Ephesian. If you want though, I can send the extracted files to you via DropBox. Just let me know if you're interested in doing that or not.

Thanks for the input!
 
@Ephesian: I know they're already html, but they're in a bunch of separate docs. For a book you want stuff like page numbers, table of contents, etc. -- not just a giant disorganized document.

@Swizl: surely anyone can put any pictures he/she wants on his/her copy of the manual (it's going to be out of date every couple of months anyway). Treating the documentation for this month's version of C3D as being some kind of special event is nutty.

What we really want is to be able to "push a button" at any time and get an up-to-date "manual". The solution is a process and not some kind of perfect document. It's 2011 not 1850.
 
Podperson, you are welcome to create this document if you are so inclined then. It's easy to write words, here I'm doing it now. Talk is cheap. People asked for a printable pdf version, and that's what I gave them. Feel free to HTML or use whatever other Voodoo you supposedly have.
 
I've posted a PDF comprising all of the 5.8 help pages with some style fixes (to remove all the repeated headers/footers and remove borders from tables) on my c3dstuff page.

http://loewald.com/c3dstuff

As an aside -- while I was able to merge all the PDFs using a utility program I wrote, the HTML in the C3D help pages is horrible and includes all kinds of problems. The way the help directories are arranged (with urls pointing to aliases of the actual images) means that my proposed workflow is actually a lot harder than I'd hoped (so no table of contents in this version).
 
Its just an idea

Hi peeps
I didn't want this to become a point of contention, I just thought it would be a bit of fun. Nothing like a challenge to get the creative juices flowing.

As a developer I hate writing documentation, preffering to concentrate on the actual development

I think Martin and his team have done a brilliant job on the help files. I just asked it was possible to have a pdf version, and Swizl has done a great job in getting those pages available and is much appreciated by myself.

I agree that a table of contents and page numbers would be nice, but lets not lose sight of whats been achieved by us users of the forum. Lets try and not step on toes, after all its Martin's baby.

I just suggested the competition for fun, and its easy just to insert the pages/ cover into the PDf.

I would be grateful if comments about the PDf be put into this thread ->
http://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7691

Thanks for your understanding in this,

Graham
 
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