Better Support for New Users (Where's the Love?)

We love FF, and would love to get new people to work miracles with it. Here we are complaining that we're losing potential forgers, but what are we actually doing about it?

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Crapadilla wrote: The learning curve is damn steep

A lot of potential users download the demo, drop their jaw at the EP's, view the innards of the filters, drop their jaw again, and wonder how they'll ever be able to be that good. How can they learn, and when they call to use for help, what have we been telling them? Yes, the demo allows people to open up and take apart filters, but no, you can't learn very much from "node vindaloo". Yes, we have snippets, but no, they usually only show what certain component combos do, not why they interact that way. Yes, we've really built up the forums and included a search, but no, delving through them is not an efficient way to learn the basics.

We do have a FF help section (its also in the program itself), which explains each of the components and how to connect them. We also have a FF wiki, or not much of one (may I note that it hasn't been updated in a month and probably more than that).

My plan of action, if I was part of the FF team, would be to take the help and the wiki out of that retarded little "..." tab at the end and give them their own tabs. I would also spend some time creating a complete and reliable wiki, unlike the current one, with periodical updates (basically, transferring what was learned through all those forum discussions to an organized template). And I just noticed the FF tutorials page. I wonder if it would be a good idea to expand on that (to show how filters can be combined step-by-step, as opposed to the gallery).

I'm not sure why I'm "shoulding" the FF team about something that doesn't directly apply to me, especially as V2 is in the works, but I love to play around with FF, and we need some love here in the forums.

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Indigo Ray wrote: And I just noticed the FF tutorials page.

Hadn't seen that. Thanks for the hint!

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Indigo Ray wrote: Where's the Love?

Yes, I agree, there should be more learning materials available.

But... the FF team is small and they're knee-deep into developing v2.

The FF community is very small and most of the regulars have other things to do than spend time on writing up wiki articles or tutorials. After all, most of us need to earn a living, which naturally limits the amount of readily available altruism. Consequently, unless Vlad hires one of us to create these learning materials, there ain't going to be any.

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Indigo Ray wrote: My plan of action, if I was part of the FF team, would be to take the help and the wiki out of that retarded little "..." tab at the end and give them their own tabs.

New tabs will be too much -- there's already 9 of them.

However, we'll soon roll out a new website layout, which will be 1024 pixels wide (the current one is 800), so there should be plenty of space to give more exposure to Wiki, Help, Tutorials, etc.