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The most prominent place would probably be the in-camera help itself, which currently says: "Help files not found".  The text is apparently in menuhelp.c and seems easy to change. But what exactly should we write there? Currently it is

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    bmp_printf(FONT_CANON, 10, 20, "Help files not found");
   
    bmp_printf(FONT_MED, 10, 150, "Magic Lantern help files could not be found.              ");

    bmp_printf(FONT_MED, 10, 200, "Make sure all ML files are installed to your card.        ");

    bmp_printf(FONT_MED, 10, 250, "See http://wiki.magiclantern.fm/install for instructions. ");


On the other hand, long-time ML users are probably so used to having no help that they will never see it. And they are exactly the ones we want.....

"<nowiki></nowiki> for special character ">"

This should not be necessary, at least not in the place where you used it.

Well, my information was that in-camera-help needs RST. What I originally though I could provide was a wiki extension that would convert dokuwiki to RST. Someone else would need to provide a conversion from RST to dokuwiki (there are still fragments that probably do this in the ciúrrent repository which could be revived). But of course there are still a lot of unclear things.

I would be happy if I don't need to tackle all this. But I don't know bitbucket very well and hence can't estimate what effort it would be to integrate wiki pages into the current build workflow.

Thank you Walter for your continuous efforts! Unfortunately I underestimated my daytime workload and hence couldn't work on this as I wanted. But I had another idea: bitbucket comes with a built-in wiki which can use ReStructuredText directly. This way it wouldn't be necessary to translate the wiki back and forth between RST and Dokuwiki markup, and the complete documentation would be already inside the common repository.

The drawbacks are:
- It's less comfortable than dokuwiki. There is no section editing f.e.
- If I understand correctly it's either completely public or restricted to bitbucket users. See https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucket/make-a-wiki-private-or-public-223216420.html for details.

I used pandoc to convert the whole page and put it on my bitbucket account for you to see how it looks: https://bitbucket.org/erik_krause/magic-lantern/wiki/Home This is without any adjustments, so some links might not work and there are no images (with one exception where I tried how to do it). In the end it would be better to have separate pages for any main menu topic, I guess.

What do you think?

Vacations are over...

So here is what my preliminary wikitext to  RST format converter outputs. Would be interesting to know, whether this is usable or not:
https://bitbucket.org/erik_krause/magic-lantern/downloads/

Currently it outputs one file per main section of the camera_help page, named like the sections. The goal is to have a wiki plugin that updates the files any time the text is saved. This text files could be included in the Ml sources and, if changed there, wikitext could be created to update the wiki in turn (modifying existing module /doc/wikidoc.py)

Nice to see this starts rolling!

Started with some editing ...
Suggestions: "Incomplete" flag doesn't seem sufficient. There is no way to tell unedited sections from those considered perfect/complete. Just adding flag to all sections might be useful.
We may need additional flags for some kind of review process. 

No problem. Since those are comments we can also have a
>COMPLETE
comment and we can even have a brief discussion as f.e.
>INCOMPLETE
>>This section needs some more content...

I would like to help, but since English is not my native language, I don't think I should update the wiki because of any mistakes I might make.
I can, however, translate everything into Spanish. Is I18N planned?

No fears! Correcting mistakes is far easier than providing content. So by all means, please provide content. It can be fixed later. It's a wiki!
I18N would be very nice. The old user guide was available in several languages and in the long run the new one should be as well.

That should be possible using Overlay -> Ghost Image. However, it currently doesn't seem to work, it freezes the display. At least for 5D2, 700D (T5i) and 600D. See https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=22118

Just tested with 700D and 5D2. Both having the same issue, both run Nightly.2018May01 On both cameras it happens with or without loaded modules. This used to work f.e. in Nightly.2017May28

This thread is obsolete now, could someone please unsticky it? The texts have moved to the wiki, discussion should take place in https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=22275.0

Please help spread the word...

[Using Magic Lantern]

Hello Audionut,

could you change the respective paragraph to:

Using Magic Lantern

The userguide for Magic Lantern version 2.3 can be found here: http://wiki.magiclantern.fm/userguide

This userguide covers most features available in the nightly builds of Magic Lantern.  For features only available in the nightly builds, links for these features can be found in the feature list:  http://builds.magiclantern.fm/#/features

Let's restore camera help.  <-- Work in progress.
You can find links to tutorials in this post.

A list of Best Practices for Magic Lantern can be found here: http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=8286.0

Let's restore ML help together!

Currently, if you press the Info button while in ML menu, you get "Undocumented feature". This shouldn't be the case. Until version 2.3 there where nice help texts. We should restore them for the current releases.

4 years ago Redrocks started the User Guide thread for the latest nightlies. After a good start it went inactive, probably because the update mechanism was too tedious.

A wiki is much easier to edit. I've transferred the texts from that thread to the ML wiki, which anyone can edit who also can write here, the credentials are the same. The more important part is camera help the other one general help

Goals
In my opinion the first goal should be to provide in-camera help. Have you ever been out in the field without internet access and you didn't get a needed function explained? With internet access it's always possible to find information, but in-camera help is essential and overdue.  Later on we can see, if and how we make this a good online user guide.

What can be done by anyone

• Go through the text and see whether it would be helpful under the premise that you know little about that function.
• A lot of sections where copied from the help that is already provided on the bottom of the ML screen. This need to be expanded, since there is no point duplicating this information.
• Some sections are not available any more, have moved to a module or where renamed. Those need to be corrected.
• As a first measure mark that sections as INCOMPLETE. How to do this is explained on top of the page. Of course you can also start to improve them right away.
• Look for sections marked as INCOMPLETE and improve them. Remove the INCOMPLETE comment once you're satisfied.
• Don't be afraid to edit something. It's a wiki, your edits will be reviewed and corrected if necessary. You also can add further comments to the section to ask for comment,  help or review.

Although the current text is pretty large it's better considered a framework to be filled.

What more is needed?
Apart of that I'd like to discuss how we can proceed. Please make this thread sticky instead of the User Guide thread and point to it from various places, namely from https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=12657.0 and from the User Guide thread itself. 

I'd also like to discuss the format and the future use. Once it is more up to date it should be used f.e. as a target on the feature matrix, which currently still uses the 2.3 user guide.

I have some experimental PHP code that splits the wiki article into files, one for each main menu point, and converts the content to RST format, much like the old menu text files in the /doc/ folder on bitbucket. This code could be turned into a dokuwiki plugin which writes those files on any save, but other uses are also possible.

I like Alex' proposal to embed the help texts in the source code in order to have them up to date more likely, for which a text only format would be probably better. In the end there should be a two-way exchange: The wiki text should update the embedded help and vice versa. There is already some python code in the /doc/ folder on bitbucket that can convert RST to dokuwiki text, so that way should be possible too.  Someone familiar with bitbucket could certainly automate both import and export.

And last but not least many agreements are necessary to have a uniform help file. F.e. the menu topics that are added by modules are listed under the respective menu but should be marked clearly as such.

A lot of work to do, but for a healthy community like this one it should be doable. What do you think?

Ok, so I have a very coarse parser which converts the Text from https://wiki.magiclantern.fm/playground:camera_help to ReStructured Text files, split by menu. It produces a format much similar to the one in the doc files wich evaluate ok in the Online reStructuredText editor ATM it works only on my local machine. It could be implemented as a dokuwiki plugin or as a stand alone program, depending on what the mechanism would be that will transfers the content to the repository.

It is by no means a complete wikitext parser, but I guess we don't need all bells and whistles. Currently only headlines, list, bold and italics text (RST doesn't support underline) is interpreted. Tables would be nice but will be pretty tedious to do, since RST requires them drawn like ascii art. Images are not yet implemented either. I guess it would be best to hide them in RST comments. This way they won't get lost and could be converted back to wikitext once that way works again, too.

However, all this will only be meaningful if the community updates the text on the wiki. Until now it's only me who did edits. And I think we need good  content before we can ask the devs to either repair the old latex based build system which generates bitmaps as help pages, or implement a new help system, which displays RST directly like the one for the modules.

My USM lenses make a frictional noise, even when focused manually (and no, I didn't spend any time in the desert   they did so since they where new). This is audible in a recording with my hot shoe Rode Mic (not to speak of internal mic). The EF 24-105 is loudest, followed by the EF 100-400, the EF 100mm Macro is best, but still worse than the broken down EF 18-55 STM of my son.

Yes, AFAIK all STM lenses use focus-by-wire: https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/24109/what-does-stm-mean-on-a-canon-lens

STM (stepper motor) allows for (almost) silent autofocus, contrary to USM and classical DC motor, which are pretty loud.

I transferred the content of the User Guide Thread to the wiki:
https://wiki.magiclantern.fm/playground:camera_help

Would be nice anyone helps improving the text until it is worth to be used as a help file in camera. Currently large parts are still missing. To get write access to the wiki the same credentials as for this forum can be used.

Currently I investigate how the text could be (automatically) converted to RST which eventually could be used in camera. My current favorite is to write a PHP and regex based  simple parser to convert the text. No idea though how this should be triggered ideally. For the other way (RST to wiki) the old technique present as python scripts in the doc folder could perhaps be modified.

I still can activate and deactivate Pattern Noise as often as I like with your clip

I digged in the event log and found that ntdll.dll is involved. So I updated my graphics driver and I updated windows to the April 2018 version (1803) to no avail. sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth found no problems. Still interesting that it only happens with the EOS 700D MLV's. Files from my 5D2 (timelaps with 2040x1268px) work fine. It's not super important, but if I can help, tell me...

I have a little UI whish: Would it be possible to have the sliders return to default position on double clicking the slider button?

I don't get it crashed when using "Pattern Noise On" on your clip on Win or OSX.

It's repeatable. I import a clip and click Pattern Noise: On, after few seconds of wait cursor the windows crash dialog appears.

I think focus pixel can't work, because your camera model can't be identified - do you remember, there was this wrong camera name...
@bouncyball, am I right? You implemented it to MLV App...
Edit: yes, when hardcoding "it is a 700D!!!" in the code focus pixels work - so in your clip something is wrong.

I tried to edit the MLV with a hex editor inserting "Canon EOS 700D" (null terminated) instead of the odd string at offset 248 and the CameraModel number at offset 280 (0x80000326) and it works! Many thanks!

@Erik Krause: It seems bouncyball compiled and uploaded v0.16 Win64 version already with my latest fix. So try out this one please!

Works (almost)! I can open the questionable files directly or by drag and drop. Only if I choose Pattern Noise On it crashes.

The 700D has focus pixels (in my example best visible in the last frame). However, if I use Fix Focus Dots - no matter in what combination - I can see no effect. Only if I set Chroma Smooth to 3x3 they are gone. Is this to be expected?

Actually it doesn't look very good. For many points text is completely missing. It still needs a lot of work, so please anyone, log in to the wiki and add text!  Anyone who can write here in the forum can edit the wiki, too. Don't be afraid your english won't suffice. It's a wiki, errors will likely be corrected.

It's different if I choose AMaZE (in Debayer for Preview, right). If I try to import from menu it crashes. If I drag the file I can see the frame count and the Clip info, but main screen and histogram stay black. Only if I first drag, then import the same file from menu I get an image after the "is already opened" warning and I can export.
The clip is from a timelaps taken with silent picture. Could be that's the cause for the strange height.

Downloaded and tested the 0.16. While it opens and processes MLVs from my EOS 5D ok, it doesn't work at all with MLVs from my son's 700D (which open fine in mlrawviewer). If I try to import these files from the menu MLV App crashes immediately, if I drag them from explorer they appear in the session list but nothing happens. This is 64bit windows 10 pro with all updates, 16 GB RAM. MLV App 0.15 64bit behaves the same. You can get a short test clip from http://erik-krause.de/43010002.zip (35MB)

A first version of the User Guide posts at the beginning of this thread are copied to the wiki. It's a dumb copy, I didn't any updating so far. I've split it in two pages to have the part intended for in-camera help separate. Currently in playground namespace: https://wiki.magiclantern.fm/playground:camera_help and https://wiki.magiclantern.fm/playground:general_help

dokuwiki doesn't allow for links in the headlines, hence the URL's are below the respective headlines where  necessary.

Now anyone is invited to expand the topics and make it as up to date as possible. Please keep the syntax simple, since this will probably be translated to RST in time in order to be used in the ML sources. For the time being it's more important to have relevant information!

To get edit access for the wiki use the same credentials as for the forum.

Ok. So that seems not what you expected... I see your poínt of course, but my current goal was to transfer the content of the User Guide thread to where it can be easier edited.

That way, we'll have two different sets of documentation to maintain: one for camera and another for offline reading. A large part is going to be redundant.

I don't think so. Wiki syntax can be translated to markdown or RST and vice versa. Or at least that'S what anyone says.

I'd prefer one single manual, but use some markers (possibly color) for paragraphs (or formatting codes) that should only appear in various versions of the manual.

That would be better indeed. However, I guess the casual user will more likely edit a wiki paragraph than the source code. So the next step should be to motivate users to enhance the wiki and in parallel investigate how to transform to and from RST which can be used in the source code. There are several projects on github that can be used as a starting point.

Also, many entries simply enumerate the available submenu options and repeat the help currently displayed at the bottom of the screen

Yes, apparently it's intended as a framework to be filled by the users.

In time all this information will be transferred to the official User Guide and you will have it on your camera, but we have to create that text first and this is one way non developers can help the community.

That was four years ago and there was little progress apparently. My hope is, that now that the text is on the wiki it will go a bit faster. I leave it in the playground for now, perhaps the threshold is lower this way for people to help.

As far as I researched there are few ways to convert dokuwiki to RST and vice versa. Unfortunately Pandoc doesn't support dokuwiki directly, it first has to be converted to markdown (mediawiki would be easier in this regard). Or are there scripts already that do the conversion?

Dokuwiki features a lot of plugins, there's even one, which interprets RST, but I fear the nice WYSIWSG editor won't work with this. Any dokuwiki specialists here?

A first version of the User Guide thread https://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=11269.0 is copied to the wiki. It's a dump copy, I didn't any updating so far. I've split it in two pages to have the part intended for in-camera help separate. Currently in playground namespace: https://wiki.magiclantern.fm/playground:camera_help and https://wiki.magiclantern.fm/playground:general_help

dokuwiki doesn't allow for links in the headlines, hence the URL's are below the respective headlines where  necessary.

What do you think? Shall I transfer it to the main namespace? Is the name ("Camera Help") ok? What would be the right forum section to publish this and ask for updating help?