SLopUF: linear LM

[Robin Bannister]

I've already had a look at the first few pages of the LM 
and this time I'm going to start on it properly. 
So I'm back at the web page for the docs. [see webdoc.png]

I click on it's "Learning Manual (LM)" link -  
the one saying "(start here)" - and then again on 

 "Tutorial: A tutorial introduction."

Hmmm - not very much to read here. Try clicking

 "First steps"

Huh? - even less to read here. Try clicking

 "Compiling a file"

That's more like it!
  read  ..  read  ..  read, and then at the bottom click on

 "Simple notation" - because it says "Next" 

.. read  ..  read  ..  read, and then at the bottom click on

 "Working on input files" - because it says "Next" 

.. read  ..  read  ..  read, and then at the bottom click on

 "How to read the manual" - because it says "Next" 

.. read  ..  read  ..  read, and then at the bottom click on

Huh? - there is no "Next" to click on! 
So what am I supposed to do? 
It would be silly to click on "Previous" "Working on input files"

The only other one is "Up" "First steps" 
but I've been there already. 

Just above these links it says
 "..it might be best to read through the rest of the tutorial first." 
I agree; but this suggestion is not offered as a link you can click on.

Losing confidence (and short term memory of the lilypond content) I try 

 "Up" "First Steps" and see that at the bottom that I can click on

 "Next" "Single staff notation" 

Huh? - another one of those pages with nothing to read! 

And now, feeling caught in a maze, I have to concentrate: 
 I would have clicked on "Next", because I want to get on with reading; 
but I realize maybe I should click on the bullet links first. 
By now I'm not thinking about lilypond; I'm working fulltime on not getting lost. 

And when I do click (correctly) on 
 "Accidentals and key signatures" 
I'm not paying full attention to what I'm reading, 
because I feel I have to remember what where I just came from looked like 
because I may need to recognise it again when the next lot of "Next"s run out.
________________________________________

OK, that's enough. Let us ponder LM.1.2(.LM):
 "This book explains how to begin learning LilyPond, 
 as well as explaining some key concepts in easy terms. 
 You should read these chapters in a linear fashion."

The web page should not take you to something which makes this difficult.

It should take you to a linear LM. 
The crudest form of linear is like "PDF" and "bigpage" where you can traverse 
the whole document with one action pair i.e. PageUp/PageDown or scroll up/down. 
This is what is missing. 
(Pagewise-linear needs two action pairs, and probably requires pointing.) 

OK, it's not missing, but it took me half a year to realize it wasn't. 
- the web page [see webdoc.png] shows all the other doc things having PDF and/or 
 bigpage versions, implying that this is not the case with LM. 
- When you arrive at the LM, the first page is all TOC (short/full) apart from 
 some boilerplate at the top about copyright, which efficient readers skim 
 over, thus missing the import of very first line. 
________________________________________

Two further points:
- The tree version will benefit from CSS TOC, but still offer no pageturning. 
- The very first line of bigpage-LM points to bigpage-LM.

Cheers,
Robin

r1b

webdoc.png
Description: PNG image