The wiki is chock full of information, but it's obviously written by contributors who know how to program. In some cases, it's written by persons who know traditional photography, as well. Most noobs, like myself, aren't well versed in either.
You have to regard end users as being on one of a few different levels of understanding of this stuff. It's not a measure of intelligence, it's a measure of the combination of priorities and interest.
For example, I love the camera. I love the tech part of all of this. I try to hack everything I have to make it better.
Probably most people love the results and the photography, but don't care much about the technical part.
If we first agree that there are two distinct groups that we need to provide documentation for, then that might be a step towards progress, IMO. The sheer volume of material to read for the new end user to have to wade through to find answers to his questions I'm sure is a real snoozer! Post a poll on some other photography forum, and ask the
general public how many Canon P&S camera owners have actually sat down and read their manual cover to cover.
Here it might have been 92-95% at the time the wiki pages were being written because chances are, if you were here, you're technical in nature and reading a camera manual feeds something we all need. But in the real world, most people just skim through it. Now new users are coming here in droves, which was inevitable.
Someone had a great idea with an empty chart that script writers could fill out to explain what the settings did. If something like that was done for every part of the CHDK, it would make it easy to fill it out, easy to find it, and easy to read it. That combined with graystar's pdf should be plenty for the end user. A FAQ for each section should be created at the bottom, along with links to all the scripts pertinent to the topic.
Is there a limit to the wiki pages we can use? I'm thinking only one section (maybe two) per page.
People like charts and lists. They like knowing that all of the info provided on the subject they're looking up is all in the same place.
I think the original starter's page is great, but needs to be updated.
I have never edited the wiki because I've always felt unqualified.
There's also a huge confusion created on the forum by people working independently, discovering new things, scripts or fixes, scripts that are proven to be universal, etc, and these things don't go directly into trunk. I don't understand why. I don't understand who is picking and choosing what gets to be put into trunk and what gets pushed to the side. Then I have read that there is a mindset by some that CHDK should be kept "simple" for endusers; -or maybe that's scriptwriters I'm reading saying that.
In either case, it's really kind of crazy around here. There's no ONE PAGE chronology anywhere, where all authors of all things publish their discoveries and findings. I had to go searching for a script, and
stumbled upon fudgey's script, which turns out to be the best of them all.
-But it's not in the wki scripts pages...
I think some dated documentation should be a set policy or something. This whole thing is going to expand exponentially, very soon, and if there isn't a good "filing system" in place, it's going to be a real mess.
That's just my two cents. I sure hope I haven't offended anyone. I personally think it's all of our (the end users) duty to help in some way, so I'll do whatever I'm told no matter what direction you all want to go. And I really appreciate the opportunity to voice my opinion.
