Most of the time when I use Google to search for Tapestry topics, the results are truly bad, because they are obscured by outdated documentation for Tapestry 4 and older versions of Tapestry 5. This makes Tapestry documentation seem much worse than it really is. (I happen to think the newer stuff is pretty good.)
The root problem is that Tapestry's long history of documentation versions makes it hard for Google to tell which version is the best. For example, searching for "tapestry component parameters" (without quotes) results in: 1) http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry5/guide/parameters.html 2) http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry4/UsersGuide/components.html 3) http://tapestry.apache.org/tapestry5.1/guide/coercion.html 4) http://tapestry.formos.com/nightly/tapestry5/tapestry-component-report/ ...and hundreds of other links that are relevant but sub-optimal. The true best page is really http://tapestry.apache.org/component-parameters.html -- but I couldn't find that page in any of the top 200 results. And other search terms are similarly disappointing. What's the solution? I propose doing the following: 1) Bulk edit or republish old 3.x and 4.x documentation pages to add a prominent banner added at the top pointing to the corresponding page in the newest documentation. The old content would remain in the pages. 2) Bulk edit or republish old 5.x documentation with all text REMOVED and a prominent banner added at the top pointing to the corresponding page in the newest documentation. 3) Finding a way to tell Google what older pages are "archived" and "low priority" and what new ones are "high priority". I guess a Sitemap (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=183668) can do that. I'm willing to work on these, though ultimately I'll need a committer's assistance for #1 and #2. What do you all think? Any other ideas? --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
