WARNING: Flurry of questions about to ensue...

[HarryGeier]

I would really like to see one document:
1) FreeCad for Beginners.

Freedman,

the Problem is .. There is not just ONE feasible way of beginning to use FreeCAD. It heavily depends on what you WANT to achieve. I got bad comments on some of my videos..assuming people want to learn "Part Design" from the beginning and covering all aspects.. NO.. some just want to drag something together and do not want to care about setting up, understanding the workflow etc.. which they call ...blabla bla
Others just come from ti..cad and don´t like technical stuff at all. Others think FreeCAD must be a Solidworks/Creo clone ..whilst the next one thinks Autocad is the way to work..

The other Problem is, there are some people here..and in Youtube claiming they are the wizards who will and can create the "ultimate" FreeCAD course/book ALONE.. and after 3 videos ...deadly silence..
This is.. and you get the same bullshit when playing with arduino / Raspberry and looking for answers.. a problem of the Internet and the freedom to post about Open Source things without any reasonable quality control mechanism. Sometime they are even so egocentric that they do not accept when you tell them they are wrong..

Soo.. conclusion.. It´s not a FreeCAD Problem.. it´s a OPEN SOURCE and easy blogging/publishing for everyone Problem.

[bejant]

Long Term Goal: Cover the whole damned thing.

That's a massive amount of work required to author such an extensive document, not to mention the effort involved learning FreeCAD.

Short Term Goal: A decent Beginner's Guide that gets people started, helps them avoid the pitfalls, and answers most of the questions that cause them to constantly ask the same questions over and over again in the forum.

That gets people started in which WBs?

I have been looking for a big writing project that can keep my interest without being so huge that it would be impossible. Believe it or not, a 500-page book would be about right.

It suppose it could easily grow beyond that but if you're up for the challenge, start asking your questions.

I'm not sure how other people think about the following, and a lot of other forums wouldn't allow it, but I'd like to see all your questions in this topic (but ultimately the moderators can decide).

[GeneFC]

Does anyone think the folks who ignore

IMPORTANT: Please click here and read this first, before asking for help

will dig into a 500 page beginners book?

That gets people started in which WBs?

This is a great example of the problem. I use FreeCAD almost every day, but I have never looked at the Arch WB or the FEM WB, I don't need assembly except as a curiosity, I rarely use the Part WB, etc. However, I use the Path WB all the time, while many or most FC users don't use it at all.

All I can say is "Good Luck". Virtually every commercial business has greatly simplified or even eliminated written manuals. Try to find an official written manual for Fusion 360, for example.

Gene

[DeepSOIC]

A real manual doesn't just list one way to do something. It lists all the ways to do a thing, explains the differences between them, explains how to choose between them, and thoroughly explains the implications of choosing one method over the other.

Sounds awesome in theory. But check out this thread about how to make a pipe:
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 097#p89270
I can imagine, how moch effort will it take. Possibly a few years. And hopefully in a few months, realthunder's branch gets merged, and big parts of the book will go irrelevant thanks to introduction of proper toponaming… it'll probably take a year to make it to a release...

I think it's better to focus on short articles (like tutorials) and wiki pages.

[GrantRobertson]

Soo.. conclusion.. It´s not a FreeCAD Problem.. it´s a OPEN SOURCE and easy blogging/publishing for everyone Problem.

Valid points, all.

I'm not claiming to be a wizard. What I am claiming is that I am really good at explaining things to beginners. FreeCAD is a really big program, with lots of different ways to do things. Similar to Photoshop, in a way. However, I still think it is possible to write a decent introduction that will pique the interest of most users, regardless of their preferred methods of drawing. As to the current users of <whatever program> who may insist that X is the only way to do things: I generally tend to ignore those people.

[GrantRobertson]

Well, I posted this message to get a gauge of how much interest there would be. It seems a large proportion of the active community would rather be naysayers than encouraging. Now, the real question is: Will people refuse to answer questions simply because they don't agree with my long-term goal? I guess all I can do is ask more questions and find out. I can always find a different open-source project to contribute to.

[GrantRobertson]

And hopefully in a few months, realthunder's branch gets merged, and big parts of the book will go irrelevant thanks to introduction of proper toponaming… it'll probably take a year to make it to a release...

I think it's better to focus on short articles (like tutorials) and wiki pages.

A) What do you mean by "proper toponaming"?

B) Do you really expect so much of the program to completely change? So much so that any new documentation would become irrelevant? It doesn't seem likely that a group of developers would work so hard making changes such as those introduced in 0.17, only to make them irrelevant in the very next release.

C) If large parts of a book would become irrelevant, then what is to say that a large number of short tutorials or Wiki pages would not go irrelevant also?

[GeneFC]

Well, I posted this message to get a gauge of how much interest there would be. It seems a large proportion of the active community would rather be naysayers than encouraging. Now, the real question is: Will people refuse to answer questions simply because they don't agree with my long-term goal? I guess all I can do is ask more questions and find out. I can always find a different open-source project to contribute to.

I don't believe people are "naysaying" quite that much. There are two points that are important.

First, you started off by saying, "the documentation is seriously lacking." Several of the responders in this thread have spent a lot of time and effort to document and to create tutorials. They may not meet your lofty standards, but they are still very useful bits of documentation. It is not as organized and easy to find as many might like, but there is already a lot of information out there.

Second, it is quite clear that you do not really understand the scope of the task to professionally document FreeCAD. I took a look at your work references that were linked. Nice job, but none of those items would appear to be even 10% as complex as FreeCAD. In addition, FreeCAD is evolving daily, including areas that are important to beginners. An example is the Sketcher WB, which is a core functionality for much of FreeCAD. Many important changes have been made in the past few months.

In spite of these comments, please ask questions. I have no doubt you will get plenty of experienced answers to any reasonable questions, including from people who have already commented on this thread.

Gene

[TheMarkster]

I'm not sure how other people think about the following, and a lot of other forums wouldn't allow it, but I'd like to see all your questions in this topic (but ultimately the moderators can decide).

I was thinking the same thing. Grant can edit the first post and put each new question in the topic that way. People who browse the forum can see Grant has a new question and get an idea about what the question is just by reading the topic. All of the questions and answers will be in one place, so easy to find. Furthermore, it won't ruffle feathers by having too many open topics from the same person, dominating the board.

[GrantRobertson]

Grant can edit the first post and put each new question in the topic that way. People who browse the forum can see Grant has a new question and get an idea about what the question is just by reading the topic. All of the questions and answers will be in one place, so easy to find. Furthermore, it won't ruffle feathers by having too many open topics from the same person, dominating the board.

How about this?:

A) I will create one thread in the "Tutorials and videos" forum to discuss the book itself.

B) However, it is commonly accepted internet forum practice to keep each topic in a separate thread. That way it is easy for people to find them later. Even if I never finish the book, the questions and answers will prove beneficial in and of themselves. If they are all bundled up into a single thread, with a subject line that keeps changing, that will make it harder for people to find information in the forums.