Preserved Topic: RTFM??

Does anybody know what RTFM means? I see it a lot in NG's.

Karl

Read The F...g Manual

Usually aimed at lame ass questions....

where F...g would mean Fucking.

That is what I thought : (
There is a BFA in another NG that I post at, this is basically his signature line.

Karl

It's not entirely bad advice. You'll also probably find it fairly often in our own Photoshop section lately. A lot of the questions people ask can be found be skimming the index of the manual. It takes a minute tops to search through an entire index, if that long, while it could take days to get a reply in a forum.

-Jestah
Cell 277

It's actually quite good advice. There are thousands of questions that get asked here that could quickly and easily be answered by consulting either the Manual or the included Help files (so those of you who've "lost" your manuals have no excuse either...).

It's unfair to the people who've worked hard and read the provided documentation and experimented when hoards of lazy people bombard them with questions they could answer themselves.

So, always RTFM

I always thought RTFM meant - Rolling on The Floor Maasticating

what are NG's?

*goes to fetch da manual*

heh... I think a lot of us have *lost* our manuals...heh


Harmonizing new illusions...
ICQ: 67751342

[This message has been edited by Petskull (edited 06-20-2002).]

I think he means Newsgroups.



-Jestah
Cell 277

Wuts a BFA?


(forgive my ignorance?)


Padded Room #623

"Big Fucking Asshole"

BTW, abb, I like your sig... simple but very elegant...

{edit} whoa, with the new redesign of www.twistedport.com -it's time to change that profile...

Harmonizing new illusions...
ICQ: 67751342

[This message has been edited by Petskull (edited 06-20-2002).]

Was waiting for someone to ask what BFA stood for : )

Manuals / My 2 cents:
Did you mean to suggest "Internet" (got google)? Manuals are fading out. I remember purchasing Microsoft Excel 5.0, I think it came with 3 different books! And I think Foxpro, when I purchased ver 2.6 (7+ years ago) came with 4 or more. Now those were some manuals. Manuals of today.... THEY SUCK! If you don't order the entire set, you end up with the "courtesy" manual, packed full of just enough information to leave you guessing (and back on the internet).
I learned ASP, HTML, PHOTOSHOP and am learning XML, and CSS all on the internet; a lot of the time spent in NG's, a lot of the time spent at google, and much wasted time trying to find anything on MSDN (all though I have to admit that it has improved).

Most of the question I ask in an NG are of the form, "Here's what I need to accomplish, here's what elements / methods / objects I think I will be using. Has anyone else done this? How did you go about doing it?".

The all time most important (and useful) aspect of an NG or forum like the ASYLUM is getting answers to questions you don't know how to ask. It be like a newbiew photoshop user jumping in here and asking "I want to design a web page with photoshop, but don't know how to get started. Is there somewhere that I enter HTML? Or am I off my rockers...".

So... shame to those who sign NG replies RTFM, and I say GAFL!
(i do admit - there are many unecessary questions... but be kind)

Karl

'GAFL'?

god, you got to stop doing that...


Code - CGI - links - DHTML - Javascript - Perl - programming - Magic - http://www.twistedport.com
ICQ: 67751342

GAFL - Get A F**king Life....

Kinda nice...I just might add it to my inventory...

Well, excel and Photoshop have absolutely nothing to do with each other, so I don't see what excels manual has to do with Photoshops...

Photoshop happens to have a very good manual, and very good help files (and for the record, excel's ain't so bad either), so... RTFM.



In other words, do a little leg work yourself



[This message has been edited by DL-44 (edited 06-21-2002).]

so maybe you should GAFL after you RTFM you BFA!

Sadly, good as adobe's help files may be, the interface they provide to look at them with is pretty unuseable.

So.... umm... I would like to make a website with PS... so where do I type in the HTML... by the way... I'm new to HTML also so I need a good wysiwyg program to draw my webpages up with... anyone have an idea of what program I can use?!?!?

If you use Dreamweaver, which is a good WYSIWIG program, you don't have to type in code!


________________
counterfeitbacon <A HREF="http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=OZONE&number=7" TARGET=_blank>

quote:

---

I'm new to HTML also so I need a good wysiwyg program to draw my webpages up with... anyone have an idea of what program I can use?!?!?

---

I wouldn't suggest a wysiwyg editor if you're new to HTML. Learn the HTML first, learn how to code by hand, then use a wysiwyg to boost your productivity.

If you really feel the need to go out and get a wysiwyg editor, do yourself a favor, and get a free one (aka NOT dreamweaver - that's what, $300 nowadays?) Get 1st Page 2000.

Slime - I've heard you say similar things before, and I must say, I am very confused.

I have used the Photoshop help files a great deal, and while it may not be the best possible setup, it has a basic familiarity and it works. It provides the information needed in many situations, and the rest can often be gained by trial and error based on the info gained.

Hmm, OK, well, I'll fire it up here and see what annoys me... =)

*grumbles that the help files aren't directly inside the programs menu, and launches photoshop...*

For one thing, when I went to help->contents, it replaced this very window that I'm typing in with the help files. Quite annoying. Should have opened a new window.

OK, as I remember, there isn't *much* annoying about the contents, they are easy enough to navigate. The index and search sections are the annoying parts.

In the index, why can't I type in a word and have it look it up for me? Quite annoying. I have to click on the letter I want and then scroll through the list to see if my word is there.

And the list isn't indented! When there are subtopics (for instance, "about" and "embedding" are subtopics of "Watermarks"), they are at the same indentation level. So while I'm skimming the list, I have to deal with words that don't even begin with the letter I started with, making it very difficult to find a word alphabetically.

It would be nice if the words themselves were links, instead of having tiny numbers after them to click on.

Plus, occasionally the topic names are longer than the frame provided to view them in, and since whoever made this decided for me that I would never want to resize the frames, I have no choice but to use the little scroll bar at the bottom.

When I search for the word "layers", for some reason, I get a javascript error. Not sure what's wrong there. The search area also greatly suffers from the horizontal scrollbar that I mentioned. I want this viewing area bigger, darnit! Why don't they let me make it bigger?

Alright, I guess that's about it. It just makes me so mad, having to deal with these interface design flaws that would be so easily fixed. Especially when there's a help-file viewer thing built right into windows that so many other programs use. (I understand that they want to make it portable, but I know that POV-Ray, which can be run on many operating systems, uses it, so it's probably not out of the question.)

I also believe that some other Adobe programs have a java applet for the search feature, which is even harder to use. Since they wrote their own little search things, I am unable to use the more powerful features that microsoft's help viewer's search feature and other search programs for various things offer.

IFYP

Ok, well the next big question for me is - what version are you using??

I have very few of the problems that you mention there, so I am even more confused!

For the record, I use version 5.0 still....

GAH! too many acronyms!! what does IFYP mean?
*ignorance rears its ugly head again*


[ Padded Room #623 ] [ a-bb@gmx.net ]

Ahhh abb, I'm with you bay-bee.
I mean...

I
Feel
Your
Pain

I'm using 6.0.1. I wouldn't be surprised if they had changed it significantly since version 5 =)

I would recommend BBEdit for early HTML practice. Cheap and you can view your work in a browser and it is hand code only.



'Me no here. Me go bye. Leave me message. Me reply.'

Wolfen's Sig Site

how about I've No Fucking Clue...
Haven't heard of it? tht's cause I just made it up...ya know why? 'cause INFC...

I think I'll use that a lot from now on..


Code - CGI - links - DHTML - Javascript - Perl - programming - Magic - http://www.twistedport.com
ICQ: 67751342

how about IBSOTEUATWMTCTIESILT:

I'm Bloody Sick Of These Exclusivist Useless Acronyms That Waste More Time Comprehending Than Is Ever Saved In Lessened Typing.


____________
reitsma

NFI.

GGF is not a particularly wide used one

Koan 63, written on the wall of cell number 250:
Those who Believe
Can
Those who Try
Do
Those who Love
Live

roflmao reitsma

ummm... counterfeitbacon & Raptor... I was joking.

you forgot your smiley

Yeah...but he was almost quoting a portion of karl's previous post...so anyone who read the whole thread would have presumably noticed the peculiar similarity....

sarcasm on the web is sometimes hard to notice. but thanmks for posting an answer.

Ya, I know what you mean, I'm used to communicating sarcasm in voice tones, but some people have other ways...Thats a problem....

Well, just wanted to add this:

I used to do music typesetting in a program called Finale. Then RTFM would be "Read The Finale Manual" we had to tone it down a little on those newsgroups back then.

OK, that's all

Later,
C:\


~Binary is best~

Let me get this straight Karl, you ask for help and when help is given thats not particularly a point and click answer, such as a point in the direction of where you can go to learn it yourself, you respond with get a life because they have better things to do then write a tutorial for you? Whats the point in asking a question if your not willing to attempt the response?




-Jestah
Cell 277

[This message has been edited by Jestah (edited 06-25-2002).]

I think Karl was just pointing out that responding with RTFM to a "newbie"s question is a rude way of telling them that their question is really basic.

Exactly what is rude about it?

If I asked a question about where I can learn more information about curves, would the Gurusnetwork be an acceptable and polite answer? In most cases yes. So then why is it rude or unacceptable to say theres a section in your manual or help files that pertains to x effect?

I guess this is the reason why this community is beginning to have problems. Lately there seems to be an influx of people saying I want a quick tutorial that will show me everything I need to know to start my own design business and I want it Monday morning. Books won't due, they take too much time to read and I'm far to busy to practice. Just give me the tutorial.



-Jestah
Cell 277

I think the "F" in "RTFM" is the rude part =)

[edit: By the way, I completely agree with you. While you're probably mainly talking about this problem happening in the Photoshop forum, I'm seeing it in the DHTML forum (and have been since forever) and it drives me crazy too. Some questions are just too general to even bother answering sometimes. When I can, I try to give detailed descriptions about how to go about constructing the solution, usually without giving it away blatantly.]

[This message has been edited by Slime (edited 06-25-2002).]

The 'f' may be slightly rude, but in many cases the questions themselves are rude in that they assume you have nothing better to do than explain everything to someone unwilling to learn themselves. Rude response isn't always bad.

oh, yeah.... I was meaning to give you this, but I forgot...
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


Code - CGI - links - DHTML - Javascript - Perl - programming - Magic - http://www.twistedport.com
ICQ: 67751342