I offered to Brett, off list, to help some with watir documentation. It started with Brett answering a question of mine on the list, letting me know that divs and text_fields can be accessed by :class, in addition to the ways that are currently documented in the rdoc.
I asked if I could be of help in getting the rdoc to reflect recent changes, which led to a larger conversation with Brett, Paul and Charley about documentation wish lists.... On 4/23/07, Bret Pettichord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If you can learn how to update rdoc, that is great. That means learning how to create a svn working copy, edit the rdoc text (the easiest part), generate the rdoc files using rake (not so hard, really) so that you can check your work, and then generate a patch file with your changes (not really hard if you use subclipse or tortoise), then that would be great. Sadly, i have found that this is beyond the ability of most of the testers who, like you have volunteered to help. So maybe the next step would be simply to clearly document how to do all of this. Publicly.
I started playing with this tonight, and went as far as: 1. installing eclipse + rdt, subclipse at home 2. importing https://svn.openqa.org/svn/watir/trunk 3. making a trivial edit to the comments that generate the rdoc, and 4. writing up a (still very rough) 'how to' for the above: http://wiki.openqa.org/display/WTR/How+To+Update+RDOC+and+Submit+Patches As yet, the documentation is certainly incomplete and possibly inaccurate. I reference it at this point only for folks who are interested in checking out, correcting, or improving upon a work in progress. I plan to flesh out/correct the eclipse instructions (they are not yet sufficient to get someone running the ruby apps) as well as to add: 1. generating the rdoc with rake, and 2. wrapping changes into a patch file with subclipse. [brett] I suggest that you also use either the wtr-general mailing list or
the wtr-development list for your future questions. That way our suggestions will be archived and others can also learn by watching.
I'll start out the conversation on wtr-general. If anyone thinks this conversation belongs more on wtr-development, please just say so. [me] I have a 2-3 hours/week this week and next week that I could give to
> it, and at least a day that I could give to it the week of May 6th. After > that I'll be starting a new job at http://metaweb.com ...where I expect > to be using watir more than I've had occasion to so far...but also suspect > that I'll be overwhelmed and not of much help for a month or two after I > start. > > My inclination is to send something to wtr-general asking for > suggestions of things that need changing in the rdocs - and have people post > those todos as subtasks to an rdoc item in Jira (or in the wiki?). Then I > can write as much as I am able, and if there is still undone work I can > leave it in a form that others can take and run with afterwards. > That sounds fine. My bet, however, would be that you'd do better to simply try reading through the archives to find questions that people have asked whose answers aren't already in the doc. I actually have a thunderbird (imap) archive of wtr-general with many of these threads flagged. I wonder if there is a way i could package this up and send it to you?
That sounds great. I did a bit of quick research and turned up: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_profile_folder http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup Brett, do you have any private data that would need to be taken out of the archive? If so, it might be complicated. If not, it seems like these links might light the way. Let me know. Like Charley said, a big hole is the user's guide. Most of it needs to be
tweaked to be accurate, but to be really helpful and current, it probably needs half of it to be replaced. I'd love to see bold edit of it. The mechanics of editing that are somewhat easier. Since no one has touched that file in ages, you could simply submit your replacement, without concern for patches and svn.
My first inclination is to add anything I know is missing to the rdoc (perhaps because I depend so heavily on the rdoc when I code). That said, the User Guide is clearly important. If there are others who have more energy for updating the rdoc and y'all think the User Guide is more in need of volunteer help I could easily be persuaded to work there first. I should finish by saying that I have a few days worth of time to contribute over the next three weeks, and then probably no time for a month or two. There's clearly more need for watir doc help than I'll be able to do in that timeframe. Part of the reason we are moving this conversation on list is so that if anyone reading this wants to join in, you know you can. Please do! - Jeff -- http://testingjeff.wordpress.com
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