From: tim at zer0-interactive dot com Operating system: N/A PHP version: Irrelevant PHP Bug Type: Documentation problem Bug description: Documentation Index
Description: ------------ This isn't so much a problem with any piece of documentation in particular, but rather the usability of the documentation as a whole. Having watched PHP grow over the last few years and trying to keep on top of the numerous extensions that keep appearing over time, it is getting increasingly hard to detirmine what each extension is for without going further into the documentation to read about it. I would say that is more of a problem with non *nix developers who may not have heard of what some of the extensions are and what they are for. In light of this, I think that it would be beneficial, particularly for the newbie developer, if the online documentation where organised slightly differently. Namely in the area of categorising the function reference section into high level chunks. Take for example the following question: what different databases does php support? This is not an easy question to answer unless you know what all the extensions do first when you are reading through the index. If it were reorganised slightly so it was something like this: Database Functions . MySQL Server Functions . MS SQL Server Functions . ODBC Functions Filesystem Functions . Directory Functions . File Functions An addition to this format would be the ability to collapse these sections on the page so that you do not have this massive list staring back at you. The documentation provided so far has been great, but I think the format of the index is holding it back from growing much further while still making it easy to locate what you are looking for. This index format would bring it into consistency with indexes such as how the PEAR packages are listing. A high level category with the actual packages listing inside those categories. I believe this indexing solution to accomdate not only for future growth of the documentation, but also makes it easier to use while still maintaining the integrity of the current documentation. -- Edit bug report at http://bugs.php.net/?id=24861&edit=1 -- Try a CVS snapshot (php4): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=trysnapshot4 Try a CVS snapshot (php5): http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=trysnapshot5 Fixed in CVS: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=fixedcvs Fixed in release: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=alreadyfixed Need backtrace: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=needtrace Try newer version: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=oldversion Not developer issue: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=support Expected behavior: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=notwrong Not enough info: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=notenoughinfo Submitted twice: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=submittedtwice register_globals: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=globals PHP 3 support discontinued: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=php3 Daylight Savings: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=dst IIS Stability: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=isapi Install GNU Sed: http://bugs.php.net/fix.php?id=24861&r=gnused -- PHP Documentation Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
