duketown, I was trying to find a good compromise between file size and quality. I'll see if I can improve the quality without causing the end file size to be outrageoulsy huge.

It is unfortunate that the CMSMS site was redesigned right after I made the tutorials. That's out of my control.

nhaack, I think adding some static slides is a good idea. It takes quite a bit of time to add that type of information though and I didn't have that much time to work with. Perhaps future videos will include that. I do like the idea. As for Captivate, it is far too expensive for me to consider. I'm using SnpazPro X for Mac which works well. I do need to look into improving the quality though.

I appreciate the feedback.

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Michael

I can suggest Camtasia Studio

http://www.techsmith.com/

Same features (I think) but a little bit cheaper ...

My primary computer is a Mac and Camtasia is PC based (possibly Mac in the future)...and still it's quite expensive. I think I've got the necessary tools, I just need to tweak some settings.

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Michael

Hey cnymike,

can I help/support you somehow?

greetings
nils

Hi Nils, that's a nice gesture. thanks for the offer of help. I'm not sure at this point how to proceed with the video tutorials. Part of my problem is just a general lack of enough technical knowledge to really be able to produce useful tutorials. the otehr problem is ensuring that the end result is of a good enough video quality to be easily seen. I'm using SnapzProX for Mac by ambrosia sofware and it works quite nicely. I'm just trying to figure out the best compromise to make with image size versus file size.

I'm not sure if I should be optimizing for web streaming, or some large size. Should the view be 640x480...1024x768, what?
What do you propose as a way to help? Or can I help you in some way?

Michael

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Michael

Hi Michael, I could make transcripts for the tutorials and provide the content for the text screens if you'd like. I am not a pro at the cmsms code, but it should be enough for a few tutorials. From a certain level of experience on, I think tutorial movies are not required. A good text documentation will do for those experienced users.

I can probably make some suggestions according to how I made the videos for one of our customers. Size doesn't matter in this respect. I think 640x480 is already enough. As long as the correct screen ratio is kept, I think a width of 500 could also be enough (as many users keep the movies in a window while doing the shown stuff). It could be abit sharper though. How about DivX encoding for smaller file sizes?

When you are quick at making the videos, why not use a trial version of a larger commercial product? They work for 30 days. I worked with Camtasia and Captivate, and I must say with captivate, it is very easy to make professional looking movies and you can change mouse (and other elements) position afterwards. It works more like a dynamic flash slide show (small files), whereas camtasia is more like a screen video.

What would be basic stuff someone new to CMSMS needs to know to get going?

Some suggestions for the movie structure (a text slide after each point)
--------------------------------
Movie 1 - Preparation:
- Server requirements = 1 minute
- Download (unzip) = 30 seconds
- Upload to ftp = 30 seconds
- config.php (just create and upload) = 20 seconds
- Folder permissions required = 40 sec.
- Common problems

Movie 2 - Installation and initial setup process
- Start = 20 sec.
- username = 30 sec.
- DB and site info = 1 minute
- deleting install folder = 20 second
- viewing front end = 20 seconds
- Common problems

Movie 3 - Content Editing (1)
- Delete Page 30 sec.
- Create Page 30 sec.
- Move Page 1 minute
- Edit page  1 minute
- Common problems

Movie 4 - Content Editing
- Global Content Blocks 90 sec.
- News 90 sec.
- Common problems

So with these 4 tutorials, most users should be able to at least do the very basic stuff and maintain a site with the standard installation online. From then on, movies could deal with very specific issues like templates, settings or modules.

Or we could analyse the headlines/content/view stats of support queries and see what are the major issues people are fighting with.

Is there a coordinated documentation project going on? Is someone coordinating the documentation efforts?

I honestly don't want to show off, but I'd like to offer my help here. Part of my job is to document and conceptually plan enterprise level CMS (automotive), create tutorials and training material as well as doing workshops together with the customer. I could roughly provide something like half a day per week for a documentation project and would also volunteer to take the lead in it if noone does/wants.

Hey, and no offence to the existing documentation and tutorials! But I think as CMSMS wants to be a great CMS, why not have a great documentation as well (downloadable PDF manual, rss for documentation updates, movies, FAQ, glossary and case studies). I sometimes found it quite hard at the beginning to find answers to my questions.

What do you think?

regards
nils

nhaack:

The current documentation project is 'stalled' because people just don't have time to donate to the effort..... if you have some spare cycles.... then:

You're nominated:

if we get another dev team member to second you... you're in.... and we can arrange a meeting to discuss where we need to go with the documentation and how to do it.

Any seconders?

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cnymike:

As far as your tutorials, I think they're great!!  and I'd say keep going..... it's never a waste of effort. 

Sounds like we may have some help for you coming soon too!!!

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Thanks.

One thing I'm a little leary of and something that is somewhat of a pain to deal with in the videos, is obfuscation of server address, login names, etc. Any ideas on how this can be achieved, either by use of a server where it doesn't matter if someone figures it out or not... I'm just wary of using my personal webspace for producing some of the videos, particularly the ones having to do with uploading a package, ftp'ing in and stuff like that.

I'm also willing to help with the documentation effort. Towards that end, I am committed to at the very least, documenting more fully in the forums, how I arrived at a solution to a problem I encounter. I figure if I write it with enough detail that I can understand it, then it likely will be understood by just about anybody. An example of a recent post in which I did that is here...
http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.ph ... l#msg90851

the docs area is a total jumble and it sounds like nils can really help in that area. I'd be interested in trying to contribute there too.

Michael

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Michael

Nils, I used h.264 for the QT movie I did. It was my understanding that h.264 was a superior encoding method for high quality but reasonably sized video. Maybe I'm mistaken?

Michael

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Michael

Hi Michael, I am not that much into the different kinds of video formats. Never mind . I just always was content with the quality size ratio. very reasonable, but there might be way better ones out there today.

I could provide you with an own FTP access and database. I also have a domain name unused at the moment (citycrew.de) or can set up a subdomain / path if you prefer. So a full scenario. Afterwards, I would just delete DB and FTP-Access and direct domain back to construction page. So no worries for anybody.

What do you think?

nils

Nils,
Wow, that's an offer I can't refuse. It removes all fears I would have. Maybe we should move this conversation to a private message now to discuss the details.

Michael

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Michael

I haven't really been around here very long, but here's my input.

What about getting a domain just for this purpose?  They are not that expensive, then someone could hang that off of their current host's account.

Or, just setup something local.  You could even put an entry in your hosts file to direct www.example.com to 127.0.0.1, what could be more proper than that?

Hi Nivekiam, truely spoken. This would actually be indeed the simplest ways of 'em all.

@cnymike: that sounds good. However, let me know if would like to go with Nivekiams options. If you prefer doing it via web, I can offer my server (in that case, just contact me via message or mail).

@all: So, the next steps, for discussion, are identifying the current state of the documentation, see what we want it to be in the future and then see how we can approach which topic. For discussion on the whole documentation project I startet a new topic in the documentation forum.

regards
nils

I too have not been around long.  Almost finished two sites with CMSMS so far. 

Lending to this discussion.... Not only are videos good but nice looking documentation that can be printed or downloaded in PDF form.  There are some that would benefit or favor printing out instructions in order to follow them.  I am not that good of a writer, but have written much for clients so they are able to use software we have written.

Let me put together a few based on the outline provided above by nhaack and see what you all think.  They are pretty easy to crank out.

If you like them, I would be willing to contribute as a documentation team member.

Has anybody volunteered/nominated/voted to be head Doc Master?  nhaack?  Cubix in another thread said he was good at gathering and organizing relevant information.  I vote for these two.  Both mentioned willing to help.

TTYL

David