On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, John Weiss wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 16, 2005 at 01:47:42AM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Hi
> >
> > I'd like to ask for some ideas/thoughts on the wiki from a documentation
> > perspective. Or rather, I'd like some general thougths on what kind of
> > documentation we would like for LyX, considering that we can have the
> > documentation in several places these days.
> :
> :
> > However, I hope we should be able to use the collaborative aspect of the
> > wiki to make it easier for people to contribute to the documentation. For
> > instance by supplying examples of how LyX can be used. Or by adding FAQ
> > etc.
>
> Hmm... interestingly, when discussion of making an FAQ *originally*
> occurred (like, back in 1996 or so), I suggested that the FAQ become
> an initial launchpad for new sections of the docs. The FAQ could then
> say, "See the <XYZ-Sections-Title/> of the <SomeLyXManual/> manual."
> Or, at least, that was the idea...
Eh.. I don't get "initial launchpad for new sections of the docs."
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Could you expand on what you mean.
Btw, it should be possible to make the references become actual links
using something called wiki 'inter-links'. They are just a shortcut for a
URI, so if the manuals were availble via a URI, we'd be able to use wiki
markup like "UserGuide:Introduction" to create a link to the introduction
section of the user guide.
> It never took off, mainly because an FAQ never really went anywhere,
> mainly due to the static nature of web pages at that time and work
> involved in creating them. With the change in landscape in the
> intervening 7+ years, maybe it's time to resurrect that old plan...
The FAQs are almost static today, not much stuff is added to them on the
wiki pages. I think they need some work, primarily restructuring (I've
been adding lots of entries to a page I simply call 'FAQ.Unsorted').
However, using the wiki it should be possible to make it much easier for
normal users to add entries. But I think we'd need to define some kind of
process for this... to me it seems users are kind of intimidated by being
able to add stuff. It's like they think... "dare I really add something
here...", "what if I make a mistake...", "where should I put it..."
In addition, it's often difficult to know where to add stuff. For that
reason I think it's a good idea to have some kind of "input" system, i.e.
a place where new FAQs are added and the user know that someone will put
them in the propere place, as well as look at them.
Anyway, it'd probably be good to come up with at least something like
guidelines for how the process should work. I suspect that'd things less
scary for users, and also improve the quality.
There's also lots of room for automating stuff if we want to. For
instance, we can to setup an e-mail interface to the wiki. Basically a
user can send an e-mail to the doc-list with a subject of "Add to wiki"
and have this automatically added to some temporary page. (That page needs
to be edited by a human later on of course).
> P.S.: You'll find that I've added several new sections to the Wiki,
> as I mention in another post. It would be nice if someone could take
> my original DocStyle.lyx style sheet and wikify it...
Eh.. "new sections"... do you mean new pages or a new group? Which pages?
I could probably wikify DocStyle.lyx very easy, which version did you use
when you created the PDF? Was it the one that's in CVS HEAD?
However, if we wikify DocStyle.lyx we need be clear on where we want to
maintain the "original". Should we make changes to the wiki pages or to
DocStyle.lyx? (This is similar to the discussion I had about generating
FAQ.lyx from wiki pages)
/Christian
--
Christian Ridderstr�m, +46-8-768 39 44 http://www.md.kth.se/~chr
