Learning the General Environment (Windows common feature set)
So you hate learning new software - don’t blame you. Most learn-to-use-it manuals would weigh down a small truck. Yeah, I did my post graduate work on Microsoft’s new product…
You already know more than you may think. For instance, the Windows environment has standardised ways to do common tasks - opening files, printing files, saving files. Once you can do those things in one application, you can probably learn to do it in seconds in the next application.
For instance, to get to this page, you have used an internet browser. Well, assuming that someone else isn’t sitting beside you (your kid?), you were able to do the following;
- turn on the computer (hey, gotta start somewhere)
- started the browser, whether by clicking on a desktop icon, or navigating the “Start” menu
- “opened” a file - after all, an internet “URL” is just a location for a file
you also may have, had one time or another,
- printed a file
- saved a file to your local hard drive
- searched on a web page for a specific word or phrase
- asked the program for help
- closed the browser application
Well, thanks to those experiences, you are already half way there.
The Required Task Perspective
Learning an application can be approached by reading the manual, or you can adopt the faster method of simply starting to work. To do this, it is best to adopt the required task perspective- ask yourself what you are likely to want to do…guaranteed, if you can ask it, it is do-able by the application, and 85% of the time, you will find it on the menu system somewhere.
Of course, it isn’t quite that simple. Every application or program has been designed to accomplish certain specific goals, whether it is to
write a document, (word processing)
manipulate and analyse numbers and their relationships, (spreadsheets)
store and organise data of any kind (database)
prepare files for easy storage (archives)
create and manipulate graphic images (graphic editors)
organise work/tasks into a plan (project management)
prepare to give presentations to an audience (presentation ware)
Each of these goals is different, and so, there are different software capabilities - and different menus to learn.
We have been using these kinds of software for a while now, and the capabilities (called the feature set) have become fairly standard between different versions of the same type of software. This is inevitable - imagine a word processor with no spell-checker, or a spreadsheet program with no “Sum” formula. The easiest way to think about this now, is simply to say –
“I need to do this task, I know the program can do it, all I need to know is where to locate the menu item for it.”
The question is 90% of the solution.
We call this the “required” task perspective. It tends to make learning the new software a lot easier.
So, when introducing a given piece of software, we will give a list of the most common tasks needed to get you started, and give the menu sequence you use to accomplish that task in the software. Sometimes, if we think it will help, we may also provide a screen capture image that you are likely to see. Unfortunately, we cannot give a screen capture for turning the machine on, so we leave that in your capable hands!
The learning curve is much simpler than you imagine - you will be a little slow at first, but you will pick up speed - don’t get frustrated.
Learning from Scratch .vs. Learning a New Alternative
Either you have experience using a word processor or a spreadsheet program, or you do not. If you do, there is a pretty good chance that it was a Microsoft product. However, even if your experience was with Word Perfect or Lotus 1-2-3, you are well up the curve.
In the case of Microsoft experience, you are in luck. The menu systems for Open Office Writer and Calc are close to identical in structure to those for Word and Excel. While a case could be made that Open Office simply copied those menu systems from Microsoft (and there is probably some truth to that), it is also an inevitable corollary to decent design and required tasks. The fact is that groups of tasks naturally fall under similar headings no matter what the software platform is. You will find that you will be up to 90% of your Microsoft productivity and comfort level within two hours of starting to use Writer. The same is true with Calc.
Further, learning from scratch is not only eased by the required task perspective, but you have the advantage of video instruction and graphic image instruction for basic tasks in Writer and Calc, as well as guides, support forums, and wikis. We will provide details on this in our posts of the specific applications.
It is time to start actually dealing with an Open Source application. We will walk you through making the decision between commercial and open source alternatives with a trial application – an archiving utility. The objective will be to examine the decision process, and the kinds of key points that you need to consider.
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