as a suggestion.
I only copied a very small section of the manual from minibb to my production site and added stuff on etiquette and "simple how-to's". you get a much shorter document and more readable for the users. I am not suggesting to remove the current manual - but perhaps that does not need to be part of the standard install.

Hmm.. Of course, you should edit manual according to your needs. And we install minibb on some server we always do :) As to installation package it contains full manual because person who installs it should read the full manual or else how he will know where and what he needs to change to install our board ..

I think it wolud be nice to have a seprate FAQ for users.
The included FAQ is more usefull for admins, how to configure the forum. I think a normal forum user doens't need to know how to install and wich hidden options it all has.
Just an FAQ with all info for regular users, to explain what each button does, bbcode explaination etc.

Rindert

I made something like that for my forum - simple illustrated FAQ on how the basic stuff works.

We will not make such kind of manual separately, because in each individual case (the same for each language - not everybody is Englishman here, remember), you need to make your own FAQ, or at last, if you are too lazy, just cut off some admin functions from the main manual, spending 5-10 minutes or so.

I would like to see the manual broken into at least 2, and possibly 3 sections.

The manual as is should only be accessable when logged in as admin. (and possibly moderators)

It would be worthwhile to "take out" the info that a user would be interested in and have it available as say user FAQ or User help. A user does not need to be given all of the config details - just the how to use this site info!

I think this should be fairly easy to implement, and I hope to read thru the code and work out how to do this myself.

I want to simply add the navigation link to the user faq/manual whenever someone is logged in, and have the current full manual available to the admin when they are logged into the admin panel only.

Have you read the manual, afterall?

This guide refers to almost all miniBB features and possibilities. It is created both for user and administrator, and is included in miniBB package as "default" FAQ. You can use this manual as basic user FAQ for your page under GNU Free Documentation License described below. If you are using this guide as FAQ in your forums, remove all administration and developers guide, described in "Installation", "Customization", "Administrative options" and "Some notes for developers" sections. Regular users should read about this possibilities.

So, the main idea is that you need to CHANGE this manual for your forums manual, and your forums manual should be accessible for ALL users. Good benefit of current manual is that you cut off necessary parts from only ONE file.

Thank for suggestion - but we have no plans to change something here.

Well, yes, I had read the manual and actually decided that an ADMIN WOULD PROBABLY want the whole lot available for their reference - and that a user should probably only want the USER sections

I can sort of see your point, but for the sake of a variable that refers to a users manual and a different variable pointing to thw whole manual for the admin I simply don't understand the decision.

As forum software admin, you can always keep your original manual copy on your hard disk. If there is some question related to the software, open it and study; also as it's always available on miniBB.com. This manual has nothing in common with the manual for your forum users, which you need to prepare your own. You can only use manual_eng.html as file name, but fill it in with your own content.

Why we don't have default users manual:

1) Every forums have their own thematics. In this manual, you need to explain not only forum procedures, but also some guides regarding forums discussions etc. You can also not use this manual at all, if your users are already skilled. As you see, we have Manual link commented by default in the software package. It's not appearing by default.

2) English is not the only one language on earth and within miniBB users. English admins can copy/change parts of default miniBB users guide; international users should translate manual anyway.

Hope that's clear.