Bug 114363

Summary: minor grammar nits in handbook/desktop chapter
Product: Documentation Reporter: minimarmot <minimarmot>
Component: Books & ArticlesAssignee: Marc Fonvieille <blackend>
Status: Closed FIXED    
Severity: Affects Only Me    
Priority: Normal    
Version: Latest   
Hardware: Any   
OS: Any   
Attachments:
Description Flags
file.diff none

Description minimarmot 2007-07-06 19:40:03 UTC
I'm getting on more shaky ground with some of the proposed changes in this chapter.  Please exercise editorial judgement.
There's a list of changes in the patch; I'll try to take them in order:

o [style in describing Mozilla's features]: I got tired of the big list of declarative sentences ``It features ...'', so I changed it up a bit.  I'm pretty sure that it's okay to use a colon in this context

o Communicator Suite-->the Communicator Suite: I think that a definite article is appropriate here

o resource-consuming-->resource-demanding: I think the latter is more commonly used

o for any reason-->for whatever reason: the former implies (in my reading) that the reader is partisan agains compiling Mozilla; the latter is more considering (nicer to the reader?)

o you already installed-->you have already installed: perhaps not necessary, but probably enhances readibility

o [plugins]: they are listed, and ``not the case'' feels awkward (to me)

o [FTP/packages]: ``the same result can be obtained'' is awkward in this context

o appear to be-->should be: the latter makes it sound more like we know what we're doing

o [Konqueror plugins]: they aren't installed by default, so Konqueror doesn't come with them (but they are, nonetheless, available)

o [Konqueror Howto]: I think my version makes it more clear what the howto does for the user

o default application-->default productivity package [and more]: specify what there is no default of, and do not imply that all options are available without user effort to get them

o [MS .doc]: I think that the possessive on .doc is valid, and we might as well use the entity while we're here

o [internationalization]: make more clear how the different languages have been incorporated

o packages-->packages,: avoid run-on

o [new document formats]: pdf's have been quite popular for many years now.  Are there document viewers in base other than *roff?  I don't know anyone that composes in roff for anything other than man pages.

o [gv]: readility and style (?)

o [finances]: more hyphenation (I'm starting to think I might be going overboard on this. . .), prefer ``such as'' to ``like'' (optional), and do not imply that an application can support at most one external file format

o applications-->programs: remove ambiguity (action vs. software)

o yet powerful-->,yet powerful,: while it's tempting to say ``user-friendly-but-powerful'', that's just silly.  Adding these commas may make this sentence more readable.

o or your stocks-->and your stocks: do not imply that only one thing can be done at once

o many-->and many: ``many keyboard accelerators and auto-completion methods'' seems to be one element in the list (if not, some modifier should be added to ``auto-completion methods'', such as ``several'', to make this clear)

o spreadsheet-->spreadsheet program: I am very uncertain about this one, but I always thought that the spreadsheet was the document that the spreadsheet program modifies.  Excel's webpage claims it is a spreadsheet program, wikipedia claims gnumeric is a spreadsheet program, but gnumeric's webpage lists it as just a ``spreadsheet'' (in at least one place).  What gives?

o and-->with: it seems that the autofill system is a subclass of the ``guessing'' and should be included as such

o type in-->do: ``do'' seems to be the preferred way to indicate a command to be typed in, in this handbook (so far)

o spreadsheet-->spreadsheet program: see above; I didn't check websites about Abacus, but the two instances should probably be consistent on the same page

o from its-->as a: the latter seems more consistent with our use of package.

Fix: patch attached.

Patch attached with submission follows:
How-To-Repeat: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop.html
and the rest of the chapter
Comment 1 Marc Fonvieille freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2007-07-09 19:08:02 UTC
Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-doc->blackend

Grab this one.
Comment 2 dfilter service freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2007-07-11 10:15:40 UTC
blackend    2007-07-11 09:15:31 UTC

  FreeBSD doc repository

  Modified files:
    en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop chapter.sgml 
  Log:
  Various grammar and style fixes.
  
  PR:           docs/114363
  Submitted by: Ben Kaduk <minimarmot@gmail.com>
  
  Revision  Changes    Path
  1.73      +45 -40    doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/desktop/chapter.sgml
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Comment 3 Marc Fonvieille freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2007-07-11 10:15:49 UTC
State Changed
From-To: open->closed

I committed a slightly different version of your patch: I removed some 
line-wrapping you added (this is to ease translators work).