[QUOTE=kriesel;535241]PDFs are a readily available form of output for both spreadsheets and word processing software used to organize and format the various information.
...[/QUOTE]The big problem of pdf is that it is a format developed for printing, not for reading on screen. If you want a screen readable and open format, text, html or better still epub (which might require a specific program just as pdf does.) Then pdf files can't be easily edited, making them become obsolete over time. Another drawback of the pdf format is that extracting data, be it text or even worse tables, doesn't work well.

Then having all these how-tos, user guides and reference material in a forum isn't very user-friendly. The latest information is not obvious to find, it is dispersed all over the threads, there is side-tracking. On a wiki there is so much more structure and also a direct access to the latest version of the article. The discussions about the articles could still be in the forum.

Jacob

[QUOTE=S485122;535313]The latest information is not obvious to find, it is dispersed all over the threads[/QUOTE]It's here: [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=24607[/URL]
With links to it provided in many places. Bookmark it. Done.

[QUOTE=kriesel;535323]It's here: [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=24607[/URL]
With links to it provided in many places. Bookmark it. Done.[/QUOTE]

It's findable. But not easily(as he said).

Also, just my opinion, but for a newer user, TMI and not very "newbie" friendly in my opinion.
The purpose is to give basic, overall information, not a book on the project.

EDIT: Probably repeating someone here, but what I think would be nice is simply a/[I]one [/I]stickied thread on this subforum with very understandable, basic-ish information on the programs available, download links and basic information on how to use them, short and clean as possible, yet with enough information to give the user and idea of what he can do.

[QUOTE=S485122;535313]The big problem of pdf is that it is a format developed for printing, not for reading on screen. If you want a screen readable and open format, text, html or better still epub (which might require a specific program just as pdf does.) Then pdf files can't be easily edited, making them become obsolete over time. Another drawback of the pdf format is that extracting data, be it text or even worse tables, doesn't work well.[/QUOTE]Getting something as simple as the output of nvidia-smi to format right in native forum posts is at least an order of magnitude more time consuming than dropping it into an OpenOffice document and printing to pdf. In plain text, the nvidia-smi output is already formatted, but the forum software reliably trashes it and requires many iterations to restore column alignment. Add in some calculations and graphing, and spreadsheet to pdf is where I end up.

If someone finds dealing with pdfs too onerous, they are free to volunteer their time to do a conversion and repost.
The pdf files don't need to be edited, the source files are edited and new pdf files printed.
Epub seems to combine the inconvenience of working in html with the inconvenience of a downloaded file requiring a separate reader program. [URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPUB[/URL]

Note also that pdf is one of the forum's supported file extensions, but that epub is not one of the supported file extensions on this forum. "Valid file extensions: 7z bz2 c csv exe gif gz ini jpg log lz md5 npg pdf png tgz txt wav xz zip" So epub would need to be wrapped in some sort of zip file, adding more overhead for the end user.

[QUOTE=kracker;535392]It's findable. But not easily(as he said).

Also, just my opinion, but for a newer user, TMI and not very "newbie" friendly in my opinion.
The purpose is to give basic, overall information, not a book on the project.

EDIT: Probably repeating someone here, but what I think would be nice is simply a/[I]one [/I]stickied thread on this subforum with very understandable, basic-ish information on the programs available, download links and basic information on how to use them, short and clean as possible, yet with enough information to give the user and idea of what he can do.[/QUOTE]That's what is intended by [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=488291&postcount=2[/URL] and what it leads to, and pointers to it such as [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=24245[/URL] in [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/forumdisplay.php?f=38[/URL], [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=533431&postcount=21[/URL] in [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=1534[/URL], [URL]https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=22450[/URL], and various additional pointer posts in threads as new users ask. Effective suggestions how to make it easier to find would be good. The forum suffers from a "big haystack" problem, as a result of its popularity and longevity.
Each application comes with its own documentation. Most are pretty good.
The blog site map is ordered in approximately the order a new GIMPS gpu user would find useful. [URL]https://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=24607[/URL]