[Tikiwiki-devel] A documentation team, hurray!

[Daniel D. <dde...@sy...>]

Big task. A team could do it. I'm game to join, even to help coordinate it.
Other brave souls get in touch with me, and let's get rolling!   :)

Dan
dde...@sy...


Marc Laporte wrote:

>Hi!
>
>IMHO, the risks outweigh the benefits.
>
>It is much better to keep everything under one roof and to get things better
>organized with our category system. We should also use the theme control
>system to have a different look & feel for *Doc pages.
>
>My prediction for a specialized documentation site is the same than for a
>"localized" (language) site. Since people need to login more than once, we
>will lose contributions. We will have several "dead" sites instead of one
>nice, lively one.
>
>Some pitfalls:
>The search system is great because it looks throughout the site. Now, we
>would need to use two search boxes.
>
>Will I check my user messages in site A or Site B? Will I put my todos and
>notes in site A or Site B?
>
>How will FeatureDoc be linked to FeatureDev?  Now, I can easily check what
>the feature does now, but also what it is planned for later. This is
>important & useful information.
>
>The Tiki 1.8 transition is exceptional. Once the ADOdb is done, it should
>become much more stable for existing features (ex.: wiki) and will be
>unstable for new features (ex: maps). This seems totally acceptable to me.
>During the 1.7 RC1 to RC4, to my recollection, tikiwiki.org was quite
>usable. I was very active on the site (ask teedog!)
>
>The real problems are:
>
>-We don't have a clear documentation plan/roadmap/structure/team.
>-We don't have enough people writing docs.
>-We don't have a way to print from wiki-structure to PDF.
>
>Will these problems solve themselves with a new site? I don't think so.
>
>If we have people who want to work, we need to take that energy and to
>finish copy/pasting the info from the 1.6 word docs to tikiwiki.org
>
>However, despite the problems, slowly but surely, the docs are improving
>because people like Jeremy Butler, Sridhar (with html docs + flash videos),
>Scott W. Fischer, Bryan Pfaffenberger, Chealer (for trackers), Chad
>(cbarbry) and others (sorry if I don't mention your names) are taking charge
>and adding docs, adding screenshots, etc.
>
>It has been suggested and I support the idea of creating a documentation
>mailing list (or forum) so the documentation team can interact effectively.
>
>Let's improve our category feature so making a "site within a site" is easy
>& powerful. Ex.: we need category restricted searching.
>
>If/when we have an active, structured, coordinated documentation team (4-5+
>people) and they say they need a separate site and they are committed to
>keeping everything alive, then maybe they can convince me ;-)
>
>Best regards,
>
>M ;-)
>
>--
>Marc Laporte
>http://tikiwiki.org/UserPagemarclaporte
>  
>