Is there a manual for Blender 2.72 anywhere. I cannot use the latest version of Blender on my computer as the graphics card is not compatible. 2.72 appears to run OK but all the links to the manual point to the latest on-line manual for 2.79
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1$\begingroup$ They are probably similar enough that most stuff is the same still $\endgroup$– Duarte Farrajota Ramos ♦Jan 20, 2018 at 12:57
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2 Answers
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The information you're after is all available, but it does cost a bit more investment of time & skills to get access to it.
You can access the repository of the manual at https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BM/. You can do a checkout of the manual as it was at the time of 2.72, and build the HTML pages yourself.
answered Jun 11, 2018 at 16:33
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2$\begingroup$ Unfortunately, "the manual as it was at the time of 2.72" is not the 2.72 version manual. Maybe this is causing the misunderstanding. It is whatever has been written until that time, and includes a lot of info about even older versions. There are certainly a lot of reasons behind this, but imho lack of money or developers is not the only one. I could agree that BF cannot delay releases until docs are completely updated for the new version, but that could (imho should) be done before the next new version, then all pages tagged with version, and it should stay there, just fixed or improved. $\endgroup$– m.arditoJun 11, 2018 at 20:07
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2$\begingroup$ What we have instead is a "rolling" documentation, which is never really aligned to any version, and this does not help Blender in professional environments in particular. They expect complete, reliable docs, for a specific version, even if they have to pay for it, like in most other software packages in the world. In this sense, imho, it's a choice. Favor faster development over better documentation. $\endgroup$– m.arditoJun 11, 2018 at 20:13
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$\begingroup$ Well, if people want to pay for that, they can hire someone to so this. It's easy to say how things should be done. Less so to actually get people to pay a full time documentation writer. $\endgroup$ Jun 11, 2018 at 22:05
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Unfortunately not.
BF never cared about versioning manuals (there were discussions on mailing lists, when they dismissed the wiki manual for the new one), so you could only hope nothing changes much between releases...
It would be not impossible, the current doc system supports it (and even PDF export, but they didn't add that anyway, discussions even here...) and many other FLOSS projects use the same system (readthedocs) and usually all have versioning, languages and pdf...
they just think, imho, that anyone should use latest versions only, and upgrade hardware if necessary. Always.
Of course it could make sense have version-specific docs, in particular when UI or tools change a lot, but I think there's no manual around about 2.4x version (very different UI and tools), too, even if someone could need it (!) because some addons are still not ported to 2.5+, today. Sometimes is asked here too.
The future 2.8+ versions will change a lot again (less in UI, more in tools), and since OpenGL requirements are increased again a lot, let's hope the 2.7x manual will be kept around for who can't run 2.8 at launch.
At home, I'm stuck at 2.76b (crappy old notebook) since it's supporting OpenGL 1.4 maximum. I guess that avoiding GPU computing, your card should support at least 1.4 as well... ?
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$\begingroup$ Many thanks for that. unfortunately 2.76 will not run, hence I went back as far as 2.72. I have found a set of old YouTube videos that seem based on that version so am working through them. $\endgroup$– DufusJan 21, 2018 at 14:06
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$\begingroup$ "BF never cared about versioning manuals" -- that is not true. It's just that given the limited number of developers we can support financially, and the limited amount of time they have, there were more pressing matters. $\endgroup$ Jun 11, 2018 at 16:30