For the next release of OpenShot (whichever and whenever that should be), one of the still-unaddressed needs is documentation.

The manual was mostly written in 2017, with only very minor updates since then. (The last new documentation written was the EDL / XML import and export docs, added on 2019-05-25 by @jonoomph in commit b1422e1.)

Documentation needs (working list)

• Significant portions of OpenShot have changed greatly since 2017, including the Preferences (which are virtually unrecognizable from two years ago, in some of the tabs).
• New features have been added, including hardware encoding (for both export and animated titles) that could do with at least a cursory treatment in the manual.
• Even some features that aren't new could still do with expanded documentation:
  • Export options
  • Keyframe animation generally (which is really crying out for an illustrated step-by-step tutorial)
  • Effects
  • Transitions.

Volunteers welcome!

Any volunteers who'd be interested in helping to improve the manual, both directly (writing documentation) and indirectly (soliciting, organizing, and copyediting contributions from developers) would be greatly appreciated.

Writing and editing OpenShot documentation

The source files for the manual are all found in the project repository (the doc/ directory), the preferred method for submitting edits would be via GitHub Pull Request but we can make accommodations for anyone who'd like to contribute but isn't familiar with version-control systems like Git.

Generating a local copy of the manual requires only the Python-based Sphinx documentation system and the Sphinx RTD theme, which can be installed via pip3 install sphinx sphinx-rtd-theme or using most package managers. I can provide support to anyone who'd like to contribute and needs help with installing and using Sphinx.