writing spk howto (?)

[Janina Sajka]

Absolutely, you should do a Speakup with Software Speech HOWTO. The
community needs one desparately, and there aren't enough of us document
writers to go around.

In all honesty, I must tell you that writing a clear, concise, and
complete HOWTO is hard work. I don't say this to discourage you, but to
point out that there's a reason why more HOWTOs aren't just out there to
be plucked off the net. My advice is to start simple, and Speakup With
Software Speech sounds to me like about the right task.

I will tell you that I attempted to write a HOWTO for Speakup on Linux
together with a professional tech writer from IBM. When the tech writer
left IBM this project stalled--after over 6 months of work between us.
That's when I took the pieces that I actually knew something about and
created the Installation HOWTO for the Speakup Modified Fedora Core.

Which reminds me, writing a HOWTO is only part of the job. The rest of
the job is maintaining the HOWTO which means making new versions when
new facts change the advice people need to have.



David Bruzos writes:
> 
> Hello everyone:
> This is my first time posting to this mailing list.  I have come here many times before to find info about Linux and 
> Speakup. I have a running system largely due to the existence of this list.  So, first, I like to thank the people that 
> organize it and everyone involved in Speakup for their work.  Kirk is the man!
> 
> Last week I searched through the archives for hours to find out how to configure my software synth.  I saw, among other 
> things that there are no howtos for discribing this process and that most of the documentation is somewhat outdated.  
> Anyway, it would have been much earier for me to setup software speech if there would have been an organized guide or 
> howto, that explains how to do it...  I am sure that this is no news to most people in this list!
> 
> So, I figured that now that I know how to do it, I can put together such a document.  In fact, I would like to 
> contribute by doing this.  I can not program well enough to improve speakup, but I could help out with the docs.  I 
> would like to write a general Linux/Speakup howto, but I can not promise that I can finish something like that any time 
> soon.  So, the software synth thing is a better short term goal.  I am a full-time student at the University of North 
> Florida and soon to be a Dad, so time might be a problem in the 
> comming weeks...
> 
> I would like to know what other mailing list members think about this.  Are there some reasons why I should not do this?  
> Are there other people working on a similar project?  Anywthing is cool.  Oh, I am also a Linux newbey, so I might ask 
> simple questions sometimes...
> 
> I am 23 years old and totally blind, so speakup is very important for me.  I have been using Linux for about one year 
> and used Windows/jfw before that.  I started with Fedora Core 1 and now use 
> Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake 10 as well.  The reason for Mandrake is so that I can help my father when required...
> 
> Thanx!
> 
> David
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina at freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040