The Lemur manual needs a rewrite

[Rtech]

I first noticed this while setting up Lemur on wifi. The manual made it much more complicated than it actually was. Yesterday I was reading a section and the text didn't correspond to the image. And several times I've needed to look to this forum for basic info that should be covered in the manual.

It would be nice to see a little more effort put into documentation. Fortunately there are some great users on the forum who help people out, but this should be Liines responsibility, not paying customers.

For those looking for some helpful tutorials, I found some at the old JazzMutant site:
http://www.jazzmutant.com/workshop_tutorialslist.php

It would also be nice to have some documentation explaining the code in the included templates.

[Phil999]

wifi setup is not the same for all situations, so it's up to the user to make it work. Unfortunately.

Regarding the manual, it surely could need an update, but in fact it has served me very well until now. The basics are there, and it's well organised.

[Macciza]

Hi
I helped re-write the manual after Liines release . .(quite a bit of work) .. so am interested to here your comments.

Which particular section are you referring to? The connection section is very straightforward.
What didn't correspond? And what basic info do you think isn't covered?

Explaining the code of some of the projects would be not that different to the explanations of using objects already in the manual . . .
Explaining some of the others would be quite complex/difficult to achieve without explaining programming techniques and not beginner material at all
Basic programming skills should allow one to delve into any project and try to work out what is going on . . .

[Phil999]

well for my part, I'm quite happy with the manual. I have it open when doing or editing templates, and for special things I search this forum. Which in most cases answers my questions.

What could be added are some tables for ASCII, MIDI input, and Mackie/Frontierdesign controllers. And maybe a chapter about MIDI sysex. But these are a bit specialised topics, and info about them can be found elsewhere. So, in fact, I don't really see an urge to make a new manual. It would be nice though, but considering the time it will take ...

[Rtech]

Hi
I helped re-write the manual after Liines release . .(quite a bit of work) .. so am interested to here your comments.

Which particular section are you referring to? The connection section is very straightforward.
What didn't correspond? And what basic info do you think isn't covered?

Explaining the code of some of the projects would be not that different to the explanations of using objects already in the manual . . .
Explaining some of the others would be quite complex/difficult to achieve without explaining programming techniques and not beginner material at all
Basic programming skills should allow one to delve into any project and try to work out what is going on . . .

Specifically, it's the part on custom MIDI messages. But that section had the same type of lack of clarity that the wifi setup section.

The Custom MIDI section is a fine overview but it isn't very comprehensive and not as clear as it could be. For example, it says to set the trigger field mode to up. In the image next to this however is a field called trigger, but what I think the text is talking about is the small drop down box. For someone learning this is confusing. Earlier it says to change the trigger modes to none, yet the image right next to the text shows them all set to any. This sort of lack of clarification leads to a lot of unnecessary confusion. I feel like a lot of time was wasted trying to figure things out when all that was needed was an image that directly represented what the text was saying.

It's also doesn't go into enough detail. I think this custom midi section could be easily twice as long. The information I was specifically looking for was the syntax for putting a range of midi notes in the pitch field. I tried 0-127 for all notes but this didn't work. I have no idea if this is even possible or where I would find the correct syntax. Or maybe the syntax is right but something else is wrong. It's this sort of thing a manual should be depended on to provide the answer.

About the included projects, at least some sort of note would make a big difference. Take a look at reaktor patches, M4l factory devices, or ableton live examples. These companies don't just put it on the user to figure out the examples. There's a bunch of documentation directly inside the examples that makes learning much easier. Why not reformat those old tutorials on the jazz mutant site?

Great examples of manuals are reaktor, max/MSP, ableton, cubase. In any of these, I know I can find the answer to what I need quickly and it will be explained clearly with detailed examples.

[Macciza]

Hi
Yep
- Fair enough, though there was quite a bit that was simply carried over from previous editions, and I must admit I did not do every example there myself to confirm them.
Looking back at it now I can see that it could do with a bit more info, and that the example could be fleshed out a bit more. Though it could be difficult to cover everything even then.

Specifically to your question about syntax that is kind of a global issue, in terms of how to represent arrays etc , which is what the Lemur Editor field expects i.e. 0-127 might be stretch({0,127},128)
It is also difficult because generally there are multiple ways of doing things and no real right way - how many use case scenarios should be covered? Will people generally only use what is there?
Unfortunately there is no real definitive resource that can answer all these questions - but a great deal of work that can be looked at to see how others have done it.

I guess some of the included projects could be explained fairly easily other would be really complex affairs that would need lots of programming technique explanation as well
Unfortunately Liine (who I don't actually work for) does not have the kind of resources / history that those other companies have, if they were there manuals would be too . . .

Anyway might look at some other Forum categories that might help cover Programming and Objects as the particular focus . . .

Cheers
MM

[Softcore]

I also believe after having spent countless hours studying other people's templates, that the REAL manual is those other templates. In fact, its quite natural I think, that when a developer delivers a tool with which to do stuff via coding, what the end users might end up doing with the code may have never been thought of by the initial developer. As such, its quite natural that many stuff that are posible with Lemur scripting were never been thought of initially by Lemur developers thus the manual wouldnt/couldnt cover it.

That said however, it is true that the manual is indeed lacking in even basic features that are not related to usage case/individuality - to give one obvious example, please someone guide me to the page where the "alias" feature is explained!

[Macciza]

Yeah, I must admit I have sometimes been baffled by parts of projects and surprised at how things can be implemented in so many ways.
Thats why I think it would be good to have some areas in the Forum that focus specifically on this sort of implementation discussion that are also easily used resources.
Will try to get around to posting a few more Modules too and initiate some discussion there . . .

Hmm Alias's - OK thats a good one too - At one stage I did have an errata and suggestions list going for an update, though not sure if I have the time for it all.
Cheers
MM

[Phil999]

maybe a collaboration with users? There's a wealth of knowledge in this forum.

[sculptair]

I think the manual is well presented… The problem is I don't know what I don't know.

For example, I was following the instructions to set up an ad hoc Wi-Fi network when I lost the Internet connection to the video tutorials I was trying to follow. It took me about an hour or so to find out that creating an ad hoc Wi-Fi network disables the computers connection to the Internet. Adding a simple sentence explaining that would have saved me!

Also, I'm having a difficult time making sense of Chapter 8 for targets set up. Unless I missed it, it doesn't specifically define what a target is. Additionally terms like lemur Daemon targets, MIDI ports, virtual ports, Daemon inputs and outputs, and MIDI targets are casually used leaving me without an understanding of how to make this all work.

In any case, if I blindly follow the instructions starting on page 55, the first problem I run into is "now touch the outputs button for the lemur Damen target 0"…ah, I don't see an outputs button. The graphic shows a pop-up menu underneath the "to:" field so maybe that's what the authors meant. In any case I make it down to "choose one of the MIDI ports (see below for details)…" the problem is, see below where? I'm not able to recognize a detailed explanation on how or why to choose a particular MIDI target (MIDI 0 through MIDI 7), or Daemon inputs or outputs (zero through whatever). Does the MIDI target refer to the MIDI channel that the device is set to?

So I kind of get the idea that I need to configure a Daemon target for lemur running on my iPhone 5, but what about my DSI Mopho connected to my Mac with an M audio uno? It seems logical that any piece of hardware or software that you want to work with lemur will need a Daemon target. The problem is what MIDI target do I use? Does it matter? What about choosing a Daemon input and a Daemon output? if for a particular MIDI target I select Damon input 0 for the To: field, do I need to select Daemon output 0 for the From: field?

In any case, I have not yet successfully made any of this work...yet.