Thomas Waldmann wrote: >> We're happy users of MoinMoin wikis for a long time now, but when I had to >> upgrade our MoinMoin version recently, I was quite frustrated about how >> difficult it was to find answers to the simplest of questions. > > One part of that problem is maybe that docs are too widely distributed > over lots of places (on the moin wiki, in docs/*, on the web). > > Another part is that moin is changing rather quickly and docs get > outdated. > > Another problem is that some docs are wrong or contain errors. > >> I documented all the simple steps of installation, configuration and >> upgrading MoinMoin on our RedHat Linux server in our wiki. This is the page: >> >> https://wiki.fysik.dtu.dk/it/MoinMoin_Wiki > > You just added another place. ;)
What I have tried to address is the needs of a simple site with a few Wikis running on a Linux server or two, and I think there's a need for the OS nitty-gritty to be spelled out for a small site which only uses Wikis on a small scale for in-house documentation, and therefore only rarely work with the Wiki installation. >> I'm sure that MoinMoin gurus will find this information trivial, but I bet >> that >> most beginners will find lots of hints here that it would take hours to >> locate >> in http://moinmo.in/ or elsewhere on the web. > > Well, maybe all doc related efforts would be more productive if > everybody worked on the same docs/sites, not on lots of different > docs/sites. Agreed, but how I could contribute on the http://moinmo.in/ is yet another opaque problem for me ;-) > Of course docs in general are not trivial, because if one documents on a > beginner level, there is lots of system specific information included > that is different for different systems (and rather unrelated to moin > itself). > E.g. using rpm vs. dpkg, linux vs. windows vs. mac, different web server > software, different setups at different providers, etc. > > Thus, our recent approach is that we primarily document moin and don't > care too much about OSes, web server software, how to do basic system > administration task (like changing owner/mode of files), etc. Thanks very much for your thoughtful comments. I'm sure you have the right approach to documentation for large and diverse sites. > You see this in moin 1.9 docs a bit (super-easy desktop install docs for > end-users, but for server installation, we require admin knowledge), > maybe we'll get more in that direction for moin2. > > Of course, if you have trouble then with apache configuration, the moin > docs won't help you and you will have to learn that apache has docs, > too. Same for linux, for mod_wsgi, for flup, ... > > But maybe that strategy helps us to make moin's docs better and more > focussed if we don't try to explain the world. > >> I'm offering this "HowTo" information to the web now, hoping that some >> experts >> on MoinMoin would take a little time to review it and offer me information >> on how to improve it. So I welcome comments and suggestions. > > Well, I had some ideas, but I think I would prefer to have that on the > main site (moinmo.in), feel free to create or, preferably, improve some > existing docs there. Also, maybe don't link to random french wiki sites > if you just want to refer to a system page we deliver with moin (and > have on master18.moinmo.in). I'd like to contribute, but then I'm only a beginner om MoinMoin, and I don't know where to contribute "beginner's info" into the documentation maze on moinmo.in. The "random french wiki site" in my page was actually the best information I could find using Google. I couldn't find anything in http://moinmo.in/ that explained the points that are well described in, e.g., http://coq.inria.fr/cocorico/HelpOnInstalling/WikiInstanceCreation > BTW, as a general note, don't expect big changes happening to moin 1.x > releases, development has moved on to work on moin2, which is very > different anyway and will need a docs review / rewrite anyway. > > If you like hacking and helping with moin2, feel invited to help that it > gets better / easier to locate docs. > > BTW, try to move to 1.9.x soon, the end of 1.8.x is rather near. > The primary change is that it's all based on wsgi then, but if you run > apache, you can use the great mod_wsgi module. Will be faster than your > current cgi based setup also. Thanks for this important advice ! The status of 1.8 and 1.9 releases is crucial information to any MoinMoin site ! So I'll be forced to figure out WSGI, whose installation didn't look simple at all at my first glance. I should make a dive into 1.9 and WSGI in the near future. Since I'm a beginner of MoinMoin and Python, I doubt I could contribute productively to moin2. Thanks again, Ole ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nokia and AT&T present the 2010 Calling All Innovators-North America contest Create new apps & games for the Nokia N8 for consumers in U.S. and Canada $10 million total in prizes - $4M cash, 500 devices, nearly $6M in marketing Develop with Nokia Qt SDK, Web Runtime, or Java and Publish to Ovi Store http://p.sf.net/sfu/nokia-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Moin-user mailing list Moin-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/moin-user
