Mods and their installation instructions

[Tim Skellett]

Originally Posted by Ntfu2

..... Sometimes the hacks author may not speak english as his first language so easier to follow instructions arent easy for them to write

Just an observation:
I've noticed that coders here whose first language is not English actually write very clear and helpful instructions indeed as a rule; there may be grammatical errors and misspellings in their English, but they very often write extremely good instructions for newbies.

[Marco van Herwaarden]

Originally Posted by Tim Skellett

Just an observation:
I've noticed that coders here whose first language is not English actually write very clear and helpful instructions indeed as a rule; there may be grammatical errors and misspellings in their English, but they very often write extremely good instructions for newbies.

And for a lot of coders, that might be more difficult then coding the modification itself. Writing good instruction is a skill that not everyone posesses.

[Paul M]

Also, I would guess that most people are not writing hacks purely for release here - they are written for peoples own forums, and then shared here as a bonus. I for one do not have the time or inclanation to write 30+ sets of detailed instructions - it's just not going to happen.

[Christine]

I seem to have a lot of spare change laying around this week, so here is another unsolicited 2 cents.

There is a forum for How-Tos. If someone isn't sure what "edit a template" or "install this product" means, of if they don't know how to run a SQL query, that would be the first place to check. We all had to learn the software at some point -- and instructions like this aren't specific to a particular hack.

[j1mmy]

In the end its up to the coder if they want right proper instructions. I think it should be something encouraged though, it may make a big difference.

One of the reasons why I picked vB over any other board was simply beacsue of resources available. I didnt ecpect to install a mod to be this difficult to unserstand.

[kall]

Which mod is it that you are having difficulty with?

[CyberRanger]

Originally Posted by kall

Which mod is it that you are having difficulty with?

I think one of the mods he struggled with is my mod AboutToday. I try hard to make the install simple and the instructions clear but appeared to have failed for him. I'd be curious to have other's look at my install instructions and tell me how they could be improved.

[Kirk Y]

Are we required to ZIP our XML products? I didn't know that -- if so, what's the point? Why would you zip just 1 file with a negligible reduction in filesize, to boot.

[peterska2]

All non graphical attachments (ie not screenshots) should be in Zip format. Other formats, such as XML and txt, have habits of opening instead of saving.

[j1mmy]

Originally Posted by westpointer

I think one of the mods he struggled with is my mod AboutToday. I try hard to make the install simple and the instructions clear but appeared to have failed for him. I'd be curious to have other's look at my install instructions and tell me how they could be improved.

I think the instructions where ok, but i think the reason why it didnt work was because i ddint know if i had to uploads the seperate one to the forum directory or copy the folders into the directory. I soon discovered you had to copy the folders into the directory... I havent tried any other mods yet, but this might be case for them aswell.