How to set up FireDaemon Pro -- documentation for DayZ community

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

As a test bed for the community support team, in between actually setting people up with FireDaemon Pro this morning, I took screenshots, documented, and then put together this illustrated primer. Then I argued with my wife a little over car insurance. Then I exported it as a PDF.

It is a step-by-step guide for getting your servers and hives executed and monitored in FireDaemon Pro:

You can download it here (PDF, 591Kb)

It's still a little (very) rough, obviously, as it's a sample/example. It should be enough to get a complete server admin newbie going from not even knowing if he has a 32-bit or 64-bit OS to being able to switch to Session 0 to monitor his servers in real time.

As such, host feedback would be greatly appreciated. Yes, the fonts will improve, especially if I sit down and do custom typography. Yes, the layouts will be standardized. Right now, though, my bladder is holding back about ten liters of pure coffee and I just wanted to get a rough idea together for you guys. Enjoy, and get ready to fall in love with FireDaemon.

P.S.: Yes I know I used two hyphens as an em dash. I hope I choke.

[desrat 4]

absolutely pissed my self laughing on the first page, awesome tagline there Mojo :)

“worst server admin/person in dayz community ever”

-TOCMasterK

[dizzymagoo 19]

Lol Mojo, nice first page. Made my day.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

Just giving this a little bump now that I'm more awake.

I'm looking specifically for feedback on whether or not new users, especially hosts unfamiliar with the Windows 2008 server environment, are able to use this documentation to successfully a) become increasingly familiar with their server environment, b) are able to successfully use the documentation to set up and manage their OA/DayZ servers and hive support applications, and c) (and probably most importantly) come to a greater understanding of not just what something is supposed to look like when it works, but why it works that way (for example, understanding the important distinction between launching an .exe vs. a .bat in FireDaemon Pro, as explained on page 4).

Feedback on ergonomics is also appreciated, though (again) most of it is sloppy at the moment because formatting documentation on 22 consecutive hours of wakefulness tends to bring out the laziness in me.

The thumbnail was designed at XGA resolution (1024 x 768, landscape) and formatted according to web/monitor standards. The dimensions were chosen primarily with legacy support for older 4:3 monitors in mind, while still remaining sufficiently high resolution for good legibility on 16:9 and 16:10 1920 x 1080 viewing. Gutters and bleeds weren't touched in the initial publication due to me being extremely lazy and tired, hence the apparent overprinting in the final exported PDF. As a scratch proof, the basic layout expresses the design concept sufficiently that this shouldn't be a significant detriment to the usability of the document, though of course your feedback is appreciated.

Particular focus was put on ensuring a high enough resolution to maintain legibility in the illustration figures. Again, as temporary placeholders only derived from the raw images, these were cropped and resized with an attention to providing pertinent information necessary for orientation in the desktop environment, eg. window titles, to cater mostly to inexperienced users. Size was, for the time being, what could be cropped to include the necessary orientation information as well as the necessary primary information, such as in Figure 2 on page 2, where the System window title is displayed upper-left and the principle information, the OS native instruction set, is displayed bottom right. Any images resized were done with the standard bicubic sharper resampling for reduction in Photoshop. Cropping was eyeballed and not exact, nor was image frame placement.

Immediately typos and lost information is apparent. This is known and the oversight will be adjusted in future publishings.

[desrat 4]

ok well I was going to run through this now I had some spare time but the link doesnt work for me anymore - just loads the first page only..

Edit : NVM using save link as worked..

[vivithemage 1]

This was useful, thanks :)

[ryahn 112]

I wish this was still around e_e

I have made a new tutorial on opendayz about this

http://opendayz.net/index.php?threads/how-to-using-firedaemon-w-dayz-extras.7441/

Edited January 28, 2013 by Ryahn