Apache Directory also uses the Confluence export plugin to produce http://directory.apache.org and I think the setup works really well for that site. I am sure the setup and export template could be borrowed and used in conjunction with some minor graphics work to improve the aesthetics of the Felix site. I think the organization of the ADS site also implements a couple of the suggestions listed in this thread...
Chris On 5/21/07, Richard S. Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ultimately, I agree with everything you had to say about the web site, except for the recommendation not to use a wiki. I don't have a love affair with wikis and I agree that often they do not look good, but the number one reason why I want to use a wiki is that I hate to do documentation, but wikis make it reasonably easy for me to create documentation or to make quick edits when I become aware of a mistake. Thus, I find that I maintain wiki documentation more since it has a lower barrier. I think this is important. For example, on another thread today someone mentioned something about the 'Launching and Embedding Felix' document, so I quickly jumped over to the wiki page and tried to add a few sentence to the page to make a specific issue more clear. It is nice to have this ease of editing/deployment. We just have to strive to have our statically generated pages not look ugly...they perhaps need some work in this area now... :-) -> richard J Aaron Farr wrote: > "Richard S. Hall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > >> Matthias Luebken wrote: >> >>> I suggest that you update the website felix.apache.org so that the >>> ongoing improvements are reflected on the website. If you don't look >>> into the Jira Issue Tracker, you don't have the impression that there >>> is much progress at Felix. >>> >> Agreed. >> >> > > I've mentioned more than once that I'd like to help on this front. > The website is real weakness for Felix, IMHO. Here are my thoughts on > a good website: > > - Very organized, quickly addresses the audience and helps them find > the rights spot (ie- who are you? a developer of felix? a user of > a plugin? a user of some other software that happens to use felix? > interested in OSGI?...) > > - VERSIONED documentation. That is, the documents for Felix 0.8, 0.9 > and 1.0 are all available and not erased. This includes javadocs. > > - Available with the downloads and if possible, in a printer friendly > format. > > - Include more "how to use the software" documents than "how it works > internally" documents. This means at least one decent tutorial. > Screencasts are even better. > > All of this is difficult, though possible, with a wiki. I think > wiki's are great for community created documentation but they must be > well maintained, including pruning and re-organization. A website > should have a flow to it, and wiki's often don't. > > My personal preference is to author the documentation in some XML > format and reserve the wiki for FAQ entries, quick whiteboarding of > ideas, and soliciting community documentation. Good articles from the > wiki can then be pulled into the main, static site. > > > That's my thoughts. I'd like to contribute to Felix and the best way > I could do that right now is with the website, but I'd like some > feedback from the community before I either start hacking through the > wiki or writing up huge amounts of docbook or xdoc. > > Thoughts? > >
