There is some great news about this! As Andrew mentioned this has been discussed before, even years ago.
Even better, the resting place for this documentation has already been decided! It will go with the rest of the end-user oriented documentation on the docs.ofbiz.org site. It will go in the OFBENDUSER space:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/pages/listpages-dirview.action?key=OFBENDUSERAnd more specifically this sort of material, reference material for specific screens, will go under the "Manager References" document here:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/RAIYou'll see some early efforts here from Ray Barlow that are based on the Undersun doc site exports, which all need to be moved to the wiki format, and which are all available in PDF dump form here:
http://docs.ofbiz.org/x/5gISo, as you can see this effort is already well underway. As different areas are cleaned up refined and reorganized we can start linking to them in the applications.
There is a LOT more work right now needed for this to get an initial pass done, and then there will be more help needed over time. So for anyone that has time and interest to invest in this, please do!
-David On Jan 29, 2007, at 1:57 AM, Andrew Sykes wrote:
Daniel, This has been discussed before, I think it was Hans Bakker who last proposed it. There was a fair bit of discussion at the time... - Andrew On Mon, 2007-01-29 at 09:47 +0800, Jonathon -- Improov wrote:Daniel, Great idea. We're working on that right now.Only problem with creating such in-application help texts is we first have to fully document OFBiz before we even know what to put in such in-app help texts. We're also working on that right now.In case our full user manual is clear enough, then we might skip the work needed to build in-apphelp texts.Finally, it seems that the instructions could be embedded into seed or demo data, and become part of the final user's website. This seems like it might work even better, but is probably the hardest to develope and configure.I vote for this method. It's the most OOTB approach. But I don't suggest putting the help texts in database. It's easy enough ("duh" kind of easy) to create help texts inside individual webapp/folders.Also, consider the case where we customize OFBiz for individual clients. Each customized OFBiz will probably have different functionalities (tweaked/modified from original), and they'll allrequire their own Help texts.Creating a centralized Help site (say http://ofbiz.apache.org/ help) will too tightly couple individual OFBiz instances (including customized instances) to the one-size-fits-all Help site.Jonathon Daniel Kunkel wrote:Hi I've got what I think is an awesome idea for improving the end user experience easily with page links to user documentation.The idea is pretty simple I think... Essentially most every page of theOFBiz web application would get an "Instruction for this Page" link.This link would then take the user to page describing the page and howto use it.The implementation is a little more difficult, since I'm uncertain whereis the best place to locate the instruction. My first thought is to create a centralized OFBiz wiki. This way thecontent would be developed and improved easily by the user community asa whole, for the benefit of everyone. However, this doesn't conform to the style, formating, or system modifications that may make the documents inappropriate for some installation. The next thought then, is to create an OFBiz sub web-site. The formatting could be controlled by the maincss helping with the formatting, and can be changed. However, it's much more difficult to develop and deliver than with a wiki.Finally, it seems that the instructions could be embedded into seed or demo data, and become part of the final user's website. This seems like it might work even better, but is probably the hardest to develope andconfigure. Thanks-- Kind Regards Andrew Sykes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sykes Development Ltd http://www.sykesdevelopment.com
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