Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
 
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There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. So, a few questions: 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. -David _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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David, this is something that we are both are VERY motivated to work and
believe that will fit in nicely with an offering that we'd like to put together for you. Please be on the lookout for an introductory discussion email coming tomorrow morning. Cheers, Tim -- Tim Ruppert HotWax Media http://www.hotwaxmedia.com o:801.649.6594 f:801.649.6595 David E. Jones wrote: > There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > > There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > > I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > > Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > So, a few questions: > > 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > > I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > -David > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
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In reply to this post by David E. Jones
David,
We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some clarification is the licensing term under which the content of docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's documentation. Si David E. Jones wrote: > There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > > There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > > I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > > Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > So, a few questions: > > 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > > I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > -David > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Si,
I can answer to the question related to Confluence. Yes, Confluence can import RSS feed and present them as your own content. Export RSS is supported too. my 2 cents Si Chen wrote: > David, > > We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > > Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > documentation. > > Si > > David E. Jones wrote: > >> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. >> >> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. >> >> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? >> >> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? >> >> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. >> >> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. >> >> So, a few questions: >> >> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? >> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? >> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? >> >> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. >> >> -David >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dev mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >> >> >> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by Si Chen-2
David, Si:
I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the niceties of the tool. In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with them as entire documents. One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. Again, just my 2 cents. Ruth Si Chen wrote: >David, > >We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some >clarification is the licensing term under which the content of >docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people >incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > >Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and >exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's >documentation. > >Si > >David E. Jones wrote: > > >>There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. >> >>There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. >> >>What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? >> >>I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? >> >>There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. >> >>Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. >> >>So, a few questions: >> >>1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? >>2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? >>3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? >> >>I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. >> >>-David >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Dev mailing list >>[hidden email] >>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >> >> >> >> >> > > >_______________________________________________ >Dev mailing list >[hidden email] >http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by Florin T.PATRASCU (work)
Thanks for the info Florin. I know you guys have been using Confluence there for a while with a pretty decently sized group. I'd be interested in any tips and suggestions that might come to mind for the use of it for OFBiz... -David Florin T.PATRASCU (work) wrote: > Si, > > I can answer to the question related to Confluence. > > Yes, Confluence can import RSS feed and present them as your own > content. Export RSS is supported too. > > my 2 cents > > Si Chen wrote: >> David, >> >> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some >> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of >> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people >> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? >> >> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and >> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's >> documentation. >> >> Si >> >> David E. Jones wrote: >> >>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. >>> >>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. >>> >>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? >>> >>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? >>> >>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. >>> >>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. >>> >>> So, a few questions: >>> >>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? >>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? >>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? >>> >>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. >>> >>> -David >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Dev mailing list >>> [hidden email] >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dev mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >> >> >> >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by Si Chen-2
Si Chen wrote: > We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? The initial thought on this is to just use the Apache license. You'll see on the Dashboard page (basically the "home" page) that the licensing terms are listed there, basically the Apache header we are using elsewhere. It should be the first thing in the left column you see when you go here: http://docs.ofbiz.org/ With this sort of license it would be permissible to include the content in other works as long as the license/copyright is reproduce there. Aside from that we would encourage public recognition of sources for anything that is re-used, especially in a for-profit work (even it is not extremely profitable, like a book for example). -David _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by Ruth Hoffman
Ruth, (and others reading in...), I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but something certainly is... I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. -David Ruth Hoffman wrote: > David, Si: > I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > niceties of the tool. > > In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > them as entire documents. > > One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. > > Again, just my 2 cents. > > Ruth > Si Chen wrote: > >> David, >> >> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some >> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of >> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people >> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? >> >> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and >> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's >> documentation. >> >> Si >> >> David E. Jones wrote: >> >> >>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. >>> >>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. >>> >>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? >>> >>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? >>> >>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. >>> >>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. >>> >>> So, a few questions: >>> >>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? >>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? >>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? >>> >>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. >>> >>> -David >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Dev mailing list >>> [hidden email] >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dev mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >> >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Hi
A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page describing the return process, and important notes. I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help create high quality documentation. I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the time. Thanks On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but something certainly is... > > I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. > > It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. > > Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > > Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > -David > > > Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > David, Si: > > I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > > > IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > > that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > > format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > > me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > niceties of the tool. > > > > In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > > like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > > really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > > things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > > develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > > and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > > page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > > contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > > them as entire documents. > > > > One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > > much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. > > > > Again, just my 2 cents. > > > > Ruth > > Si Chen wrote: > > > >> David, > >> > >> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > >> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > >> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > >> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > >> > >> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > >> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > >> documentation. > >> > >> Si > >> > >> David E. Jones wrote: > >> > >> > >>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > >>> > >>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > >>> > >>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > >>> > >>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > >>> > >>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > >>> > >>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > >>> > >>> So, a few questions: > >>> > >>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > >>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > >>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > >>> > >>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > >>> > >>> -David > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Dev mailing list > >>> [hidden email] > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Dev mailing list > >> [hidden email] > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >> > >> > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev Daniel *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- Have a GREAT Day! Daniel Kunkel [hidden email] BioWaves, LLC http://www.BioWaves.com 14150 NE 20th St. Suite F1 Bellevue, WA 98007 800-734-3588 425-895-0050 http://www.Apartment-Pets.com http://www.Focus-Illusion.com http://www.Brain-Fun.com http://www.ColorGlasses.com *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by David E. Jones
I'll be glad to help, David. Confluence is a good and a reliable piece
of software.
A Confluence space (like any other Wiki based document repository) can be easily transformed in a pile of mess if you're not carefully planning its structure *before* letting the users contributing. Also, plan carefully the roles and the permissions you want to use. The last version of Confluence also has some neat AJAX ;) based plugins and glamorous interfaces, OFBiz users will love some of these features. BTW I am not associated with the people from Atlassian nor having any commercial interest in promoting this product. For free plugins or to see what you can do at the UI level in Confluence you can visit this site: http://www.adaptavist.com The site above is using a customized version of Confluence for their public site and you may find some ideas there (including some free stuff) for organizing the OFBiz wiki look'n feel, if this will be desired. BTW, you and Andy still have those accounts in our system, you're more than welcome to visit us and if you see something interesting (especially the space where we're aggregating OFBiz related RSSs and other stuff) please let me know, I'll be glad to give more details. -florin PS our Confluence server is a SUSE 9.2 (P4/3Ghz/1GBRAM) box running mysql+Confluence+JIRA + an SVN server+other stuff, and we rarely restart the machine for maintenance purposes only. And as you know we have a pretty decently sized user group indeed. Very reliable stuff! JIRA, on the other hand, is using the Entity-Engine ... so ... as expected ... no problems at all, of course! :) David E Jones wrote: Thanks for the info Florin. I know you guys have been using Confluence there for a while with a pretty decently sized group. I'd be interested in any tips and suggestions that might come to mind for the use of it for OFBiz... -David Florin T.PATRASCU (work) wrote: _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
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In reply to this post by Daniel Kunkel
Daniel, Are you referring to wikalong? Or actually adding a help menu for each screen on the backend? http://www.wikalong.org/ ----- Original Message ---- From: Daniel Kunkel <[hidden email]> To: OFBiz Project Development Discussion <[hidden email]> Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2006 12:15:46 AM Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation? Hi A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page describing the return process, and important notes. I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help create high quality documentation. I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the time. Thanks On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but something certainly is... > > I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. > > It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. > > Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > > Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > -David > > > Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > David, Si: > > I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > > > IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > > that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > > format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > > me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > niceties of the tool. > > > > In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > > like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > > really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > > things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > > develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > > and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > > page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > > contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > > them as entire documents. > > > > One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > > much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. > > > > Again, just my 2 cents. > > > > Ruth > > Si Chen wrote: > > > >> David, > >> > >> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > >> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > >> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > >> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > >> > >> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > >> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > >> documentation. > >> > >> Si > >> > >> David E. Jones wrote: > >> > >> > >>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > >>> > >>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > >>> > >>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > >>> > >>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > >>> > >>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > >>> > >>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > >>> > >>> So, a few questions: > >>> > >>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > >>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > >>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > >>> > >>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > >>> > >>> -David > >>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Dev mailing list > >>> [hidden email] > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Dev mailing list > >> [hidden email] > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >> > >> > >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev Daniel *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- Have a GREAT Day! Daniel Kunkel [hidden email] BioWaves, LLC http://www.BioWaves.com 14150 NE 20th St. Suite F1 Bellevue, WA 98007 800-734-3588 425-895-0050 http://www.Apartment-Pets.com http://www.Focus-Illusion.com http://www.Brain-Fun.com http://www.ColorGlasses.com *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by Daniel Kunkel
Daniel, With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in OFBiz, so once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could add links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger server and may need to push for donations to help with this... -David Daniel Kunkel wrote: > Hi > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > describing the return process, and important notes. > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > create high quality documentation. > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > time. > > > Thanks > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), >> >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but something certainly is... >> >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. >> >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. >> >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. >> >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. >> >> Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. >> >> -David >> >> >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: >>> David, Si: >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. >>> >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the >>> niceties of the tool. >>> >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with >>> them as entire documents. >>> >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. >>> >>> Again, just my 2 cents. >>> >>> Ruth >>> Si Chen wrote: >>> >>>> David, >>>> >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? >>>> >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's >>>> documentation. >>>> >>>> Si >>>> >>>> David E. Jones wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. >>>>> >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. >>>>> >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? >>>>> >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? >>>>> >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. >>>>> >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. >>>>> >>>>> So, a few questions: >>>>> >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? >>>>> >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. >>>>> >>>>> -David >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Dev mailing list >>>>> [hidden email] >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Dev mailing list >>>> [hidden email] >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Dev mailing list >>> [hidden email] >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Dev mailing list >> [hidden email] >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
Administrator
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This is definitively a great great idea !!!
I'm boiling, waiting to see that running... Jacques > > Daniel, > > With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in OFBiz, so once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could add links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... > > Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger server and may need to push for donations to help with this... > > -David > > > Daniel Kunkel wrote: > > Hi > > > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > > describing the return process, and important notes. > > > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would > > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > > create high quality documentation. > > > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > > time. > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), > >> > >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for something certainly is... > >> > >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. > >> > >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. > >> > >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > >> > >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > >> > >> Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. > >> > >> -David > >> > >> > >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: > >>> David, Si: > >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > >>> > >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > >>> niceties of the tool. > >>> > >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > >>> them as entire documents. > >>> > >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of > >>> > >>> Again, just my 2 cents. > >>> > >>> Ruth > >>> Si Chen wrote: > >>> > >>>> David, > >>>> > >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > >>>> > >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > >>>> documentation. > >>>> > >>>> Si > >>>> > >>>> David E. Jones wrote: > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > >>>>> > >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > >>>>> > >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > >>>>> > >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > >>>>> > >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > >>>>> > >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > >>>>> > >>>>> So, a few questions: > >>>>> > >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > >>>>> > >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > >>>>> > >>>>> -David > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>>> Dev mailing list > >>>>> [hidden email] > >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>> Dev mailing list > >>>> [hidden email] > >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Dev mailing list > >>> [hidden email] > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Dev mailing list > >> [hidden email] > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Administrator
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I remember having expected that Les Austin will supervised OFBiz Confluence, is
that or will be true ? For now guys like me are only allowed to make comments, right ? This is certainly a very important point, because Wiki is not supervised but a lot as been made through its channel. If pages are taken away from Wiki to Confluence the only way to modify them is comments, right ? Jacques > This is definitively a great great idea !!! > > I'm boiling, waiting to see that running... > > Jacques > > > > > Daniel, > > > > With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun > end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in OFBiz, > once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could add > links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... > > > > Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger server and > may need to push for donations to help with this... > > > > -David > > > > > > Daniel Kunkel wrote: > > > Hi > > > > > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > > > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > > > > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > > > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > > > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > > > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > > > describing the return process, and important notes. > > > > > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would > > > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > > > create high quality documentation. > > > > > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > > > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > > > time. > > > > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > > >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > >> > > >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best > the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but > something certainly is... > > >> > > >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool > for this. > > >> > > >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with > it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and > summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other > places. > > >> > > >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation > itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The > main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, > namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > >> > > >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a > "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a > separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want > too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save > type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > > >> > > >> Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so > this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > >> > > >> -David > > >> > > >> > > >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > >>> David, Si: > > >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > >>> > > >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > > >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > > >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > > >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > >>> niceties of the tool. > > >>> > > >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > > >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > > >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > > >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > > >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > > >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > > >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > > >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > > >>> them as entire documents. > > >>> > > >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > > >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of > text. > > >>> > > >>> Again, just my 2 cents. > > >>> > > >>> Ruth > > >>> Si Chen wrote: > > >>> > > >>>> David, > > >>>> > > >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > > >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > > >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > > >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > > >>>> > > >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > > >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > > >>>> documentation. > > >>>> > > >>>> Si > > >>>> > > >>>> David E. Jones wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the > proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. > More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I > still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other > alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already > having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering > the software. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed > by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by > simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this > enough to help with it? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid > $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't > seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough > about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different > content management system because of different data structures and such. It > doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the > choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the > work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just > move the content to another tool. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to > another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever > does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and > on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc > site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> So, a few questions: > > >>>>> > > >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > > >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other > sources? > > >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help > maintain this? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it > someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about > to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also > very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser > and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving > off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> -David > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> _______________________________________________ > > >>>>> Dev mailing list > > >>>>> [hidden email] > > >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>> _______________________________________________ > > >>>> Dev mailing list > > >>>> [hidden email] > > >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>> _______________________________________________ > > >>> Dev mailing list > > >>> [hidden email] > > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> Dev mailing list > > >> [hidden email] > > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Hi Jacques
I think David mentioned in his original post that the intention was to allow editing access to the public for the wiki section of confluence, but maintain tighter control over the end-user docs section Regards Scott -----Original Message----- From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Jacques Le Roux Sent: Thursday, 1 June 2006 8:43 p.m. To: OFBiz Project Development Discussion Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation? I remember having expected that Les Austin will supervised OFBiz Confluence, is that or will be true ? For now guys like me are only allowed to make comments, right ? This is certainly a very important point, because Wiki is not supervised but a lot as been made through its channel. If pages are taken away from Wiki to Confluence the only way to modify them is comments, right ? Jacques > This is definitively a great great idea !!! > > I'm boiling, waiting to see that running... > > Jacques > > > > > Daniel, > > > > With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun > end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in so > once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could add > links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... > > > > Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger server and > may need to push for donations to help with this... > > > > -David > > > > > > Daniel Kunkel wrote: > > > Hi > > > > > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > > > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > > > > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > > > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > > > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > > > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > > > describing the return process, and important notes. > > > > > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which > > > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > > > create high quality documentation. > > > > > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > > > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > > > time. > > > > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > > >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > >> > > >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the for > the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but > something certainly is... > > >> > > >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool > for this. > > >> > > >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with > it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and > summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other > places. > > >> > > >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation > itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The > main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, > namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > >> > > >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a > "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a > separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want > too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save > type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > > >> > > >> Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so > this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > >> > > >> -David > > >> > > >> > > >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > >>> David, Si: > > >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > >>> > > >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - > > >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > > >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > > >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > >>> niceties of the tool. > > >>> > > >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > > >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > > >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > > >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > > >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > > >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > > >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > > >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > > >>> them as entire documents. > > >>> > > >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > > >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of > text. > > >>> > > >>> Again, just my 2 cents. > > >>> > > >>> Ruth > > >>> Si Chen wrote: > > >>> > > >>>> David, > > >>>> > > >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > > >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > > >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > > >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > > >>>> > > >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > > >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different > > >>>> documentation. > > >>>> > > >>>> Si > > >>>> > > >>>> David E. Jones wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the > proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. > More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I > still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other > alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already > having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering > the software. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed > by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by > simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this > enough to help with it? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about > $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't > seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough > about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different > content management system because of different data structures and such. It > doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the > choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the > work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just > move the content to another tool. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to > another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever > does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and > on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc > site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> So, a few questions: > > >>>>> > > >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > > >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other > sources? > > >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help > maintain this? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it > someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how > to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also > very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser > and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving > off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> -David > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> _______________________________________________ > > >>>>> Dev mailing list > > >>>>> [hidden email] > > >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>> _______________________________________________ > > >>>> Dev mailing list > > >>>> [hidden email] > > >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>> _______________________________________________ > > >>> Dev mailing list > > >>> [hidden email] > > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> Dev mailing list > > >> [hidden email] > > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by David E. Jones
David,
Based on your analysis, how many man hours are required to get this all working in OFBiz? On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 17:50 -0600, David E. Jones wrote: > There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > > There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > > I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > > Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > So, a few questions: > > 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > > I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > -David > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev Kind Regards Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]> Sykes Development Ltd http://www.sykesdevelopment.com _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by Daniel Kunkel
Daniel,
I agree, this would be a really useful feature. On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:15 -0700, Daniel Kunkel wrote: > Hi > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > describing the return process, and important notes. > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > create high quality documentation. > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > time. > > > Thanks > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > > Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > > > I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but something certainly is... > > > > I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. > > > > It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. > > > > Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > > > For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > > > > Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > > > -David > > > > > > Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > > David, Si: > > > I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > > > > > IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > > > that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > > > format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > > > me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > > Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > > niceties of the tool. > > > > > > In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > > short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > > > like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > > island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > > picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > > > really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > > > things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > > > develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > > > and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > > > page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > > > contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > > > them as entire documents. > > > > > > One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > > editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > > > much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. > > > > > > Again, just my 2 cents. > > > > > > Ruth > > > Si Chen wrote: > > > > > >> David, > > >> > > >> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > > >> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > > >> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > > >> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > > >> > > >> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > > >> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > > >> documentation. > > >> > > >> Si > > >> > > >> David E. Jones wrote: > > >> > > >> > > >>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > > >>> > > >>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > >>> > > >>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > > >>> > > >>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > >>> > > >>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > > >>> > > >>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > >>> > > >>> So, a few questions: > > >>> > > >>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > > >>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > > >>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > > >>> > > >>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > >>> > > >>> -David > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> _______________________________________________ > > >>> Dev mailing list > > >>> [hidden email] > > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >>> > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> Dev mailing list > > >> [hidden email] > > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Dev mailing list > > > [hidden email] > > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > -- > Daniel > > *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- > Have a GREAT Day! > > Daniel Kunkel [hidden email] > BioWaves, LLC http://www.BioWaves.com > 14150 NE 20th St. Suite F1 > Bellevue, WA 98007 > 800-734-3588 425-895-0050 > http://www.Apartment-Pets.com http://www.Focus-Illusion.com > http://www.Brain-Fun.com http://www.ColorGlasses.com > *-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*-.,,.-*"*- > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev Kind Regards Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]> Sykes Development Ltd http://www.sykesdevelopment.com _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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In reply to this post by David E. Jones
Isn't that a good argument for creating help screens directly in OFBiz
as Chris mentioned. On Thu, 2006-06-01 at 00:46 -0600, David E. Jones wrote: > Daniel, > > With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in OFBiz, so once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could add links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... > > Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger server and may need to push for donations to help with this... > > -David > > > Daniel Kunkel wrote: > > Hi > > > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > > describing the return process, and important notes. > > > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would > > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > > create high quality documentation. > > > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > > time. > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), > >> > >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best for the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but something certainly is... > >> > >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. > >> > >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. > >> > >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > >> > >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > >> > >> Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. > >> > >> -David > >> > >> > >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: > >>> David, Si: > >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > >>> > >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > >>> niceties of the tool. > >>> > >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > >>> them as entire documents. > >>> > >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of text. > >>> > >>> Again, just my 2 cents. > >>> > >>> Ruth > >>> Si Chen wrote: > >>> > >>>> David, > >>>> > >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > >>>> > >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > >>>> documentation. > >>>> > >>>> Si > >>>> > >>>> David E. Jones wrote: > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the site. More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > >>>>> > >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > >>>>> > >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > >>>>> > >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > >>>>> > >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > >>>>> > >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > >>>>> > >>>>> So, a few questions: > >>>>> > >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > >>>>> > >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > >>>>> > >>>>> -David > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>>> Dev mailing list > >>>>> [hidden email] > >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>> _______________________________________________ > >>>> Dev mailing list > >>>> [hidden email] > >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >>> _______________________________________________ > >>> Dev mailing list > >>> [hidden email] > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Dev mailing list > >> [hidden email] > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev Kind Regards Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]> Sykes Development Ltd http://www.sykesdevelopment.com _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Administrator
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In reply to this post by Scott Gray
Thanks Scott,
That seems reasonable indeed. Jacques > Hi Jacques > > I think David mentioned in his original post that the intention was to allow > editing access to the public for the wiki section of confluence, but > maintain tighter control over the end-user docs section > > Regards > Scott > > -----Original Message----- > From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On > Behalf Of Jacques Le Roux > Sent: Thursday, 1 June 2006 8:43 p.m. > To: OFBiz Project Development Discussion > Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation? > > I remember having expected that Les Austin will supervised OFBiz Confluence, > is > that or will be true ? > > For now guys like me are only allowed to make comments, right ? > > This is certainly a very important point, because Wiki is not supervised but > a > lot as been made through its channel. If pages are taken away from Wiki to > Confluence the only way to modify them is comments, right ? > > Jacques > > > > This is definitively a great great idea !!! > > > > I'm boiling, waiting to see that running... > > > > Jacques > > > > > > > > Daniel, > > > > > > With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun > > end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in > OFBiz, > so > > once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could > add > > links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... > > > > > > Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger > server > and > > may need to push for donations to help with this... > > > > > > -David > > > > > > > > > Daniel Kunkel wrote: > > > > Hi > > > > > > > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > > > > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > > > > > > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > > > > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > > > > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > > > > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > > > > describing the return process, and important notes. > > > > > > > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which > would > > > > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly > help > > > > create high quality documentation. > > > > > > > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > > > > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > > > > time. > > > > > > > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > > > >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > > >> > > > >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the > best > for > > the sort of collaborative effort that we need for OFBiz documentation, but > > something certainly is... > > > >> > > > >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate > tool > > for this. > > > >> > > > >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such > things > with > > it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied > over, > and > > summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other > > places. > > > >> > > > >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the > documentation > > itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a > problem. > The > > main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level > processes, > > namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > > >> > > > >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that > has > a > > "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs > in a > > separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you > don't > want > > too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some > auto-save > > type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an > issue. > > > >> > > > >> Confluence also supports revision management and history > automatically, > so > > this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > > >> > > > >> -David > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > > >>> David, Si: > > > >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > > >>> > > > >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - > one > > > >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in > DocBook > > > >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks > to > > > >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > > >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > > >>> niceties of the tool. > > > >>> > > > >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > > >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets > are > > > >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > > >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > > >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. > What's > > > >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how > to do > > > >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how > to > > > >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, > flow > > > >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search > tools, > > > >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables > of > > > >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated > with > > > >>> them as entire documents. > > > >>> > > > >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > > >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not > so > > > >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines > of > > text. > > > >>> > > > >>> Again, just my 2 cents. > > > >>> > > > >>> Ruth > > > >>> Si Chen wrote: > > > >>> > > > >>>> David, > > > >>>> > > > >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > > > >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > > > >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > > > >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > > > >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different > people's > > > >>>> documentation. > > > >>>> > > > >>>> Si > > > >>>> > > > >>>> David E. Jones wrote: > > > >>>> > > > >>>> > > > >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about > the > > > proposed new end-user and other document site using Confluence to run the > site. > > More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. > I > > still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into > other > > alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we > already > > having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with > administering > > the software. > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation > managed > > by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system > by > > simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in > this > > enough to help with it? > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid > about > > $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There > doesn't > > seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear > enough > > about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a > different > > content management system because of different data structures and such. > It > > doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So > the > > choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on > the > > work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or > just > > move the content to another tool. > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the > content > to > > another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for > whoever > > does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be > developed, > and > > on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user > doc > > site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> So, a few questions: > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > > > >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from > other > > sources? > > > >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help > > maintain this? > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content > it > > someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is > about > how > > to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is > also > > very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a > browser > > and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also > saving > > off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the > text. > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> -David > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> _______________________________________________ > > > >>>>> Dev mailing list > > > >>>>> [hidden email] > > > >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>>>> > > > >>>> _______________________________________________ > > > >>>> Dev mailing list > > > >>>> [hidden email] > > > >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > >>>> > > > >>>> > > > >>>> > > > >>> > > > >>> _______________________________________________ > > > >>> Dev mailing list > > > >>> [hidden email] > > > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > >> > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > > >> Dev mailing list > > > >> [hidden email] > > > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Dev mailing list > > > [hidden email] > > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
Re: Dev - Any interest in End-User and other documentation?
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Administrator
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In reply to this post by Andrew Sykes
+1
Jacques > Isn't that a good argument for creating help screens directly in OFBiz > as Chris mentioned. > > On Thu, 2006-06-01 at 00:46 -0600, David E. Jones wrote: > > Daniel, > > > > With the Confluence approach this would work out great. In the Undersun end-user documentation we have references for pretty much all page in OFBiz, so once that content is migrated over (the manual work I mentioned) we could add links to that content in the OFBiz screens. I think that's a great idea... > > > > Of course, with that much traffic we may have to put it on a bigger server and may need to push for donations to help with this... > > > > -David > > > > > > Daniel Kunkel wrote: > > > Hi > > > > > > A while back someone came up with what I thought was a great idea for > > > developing and integrating end user documentation right into OFBiz... > > > > > > Link the online instructions on how to use any particular function or > > > page in OFBiz to help links that appear on that particular screen in > > > OFBiz. So, if you were trying to fumble through your first product > > > return, you could hit the help link and go to a documentation page > > > describing the return process, and important notes. > > > > > > I think this could also be organized as a wiki type system, which would > > > be especially great since I'm confident some end users would gladly help > > > create high quality documentation. > > > > > > I think from a user's standpoint this would work well too, as the end > > > users would immediately find the information they wanted most of the > > > time. > > > > > > > > > Thanks > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Wed, 2006-05-31 at 22:54 -0600, David E Jones wrote: > > >> Ruth, (and others reading in...), > > >> > > >> I agree that a good tool is needed. I'm not sure of DocBook is the best something certainly is... > > >> > > >> I hope, and for now also believe, that Confluence will be an adequate tool for this. > > >> > > >> It is possible to do a table of contents, index, and other such things with it. The nice thing is that content can be linked to instead of copied over, and summary documents can stay at a higher level and link to details in other places. > > >> > > >> Things such as how-to guides and such are dependent on the documentation itself more than the tool that is used, so I don't see that being a problem. The main document I have copied over that covers some of the high level processes, namely the order creation process so far, is very much how-to oriented. > > >> > > >> For the editing issue, Confluence has some a nice WYSIWIG editor that has a "full screen" mode that can be as big as you browser window and that runs in a separate window. The only difficult thing to keep in mind is that you don't want too much time to pass before saving your work. Confluence has some auto-save type of stuff, but any time you are remotely editing something this is an issue. > > >> > > >> Confluence also supports revision management and history automatically, so this takes care of things pretty nicely. > > >> > > >> -David > > >> > > >> > > >> Ruth Hoffman wrote: > > >>> David, Si: > > >>> I'm willing to help, regardless of the outcome of these discussions. > > >>> > > >>> IMHO, I think you should be looking at a document management tool - one > > >>> that can manage and publish entire documents (for example, in DocBook > > >>> format) vs. content management tools such as Wikis. Confluence looks to > > >>> me to be a really nice Wiki. In fact, why not move the OFBiz Wiki to > > >>> Confluence. That may spur more participation...just based on the > > >>> niceties of the tool. > > >>> > > >>> In my experience Wikis are really good at collecting and displaying > > >>> short snippets (usually 1 or 2 web pages) of content. These snippets are > > >>> like islands of information that just exist. Great if you know what > > >>> island you are looking for, not so good if you want to see the big > > >>> picture or even how the islands may be related to one another. What's > > >>> really missing from the OFBiz project are documents concerning how to do > > >>> things: how to administer and operate OFBiz; how to use OFBiz; how to > > >>> develop new components - etc. These are documents with structure, flow > > >>> and logic, not just random content strung together using search tools, > > >>> page links or even web page hierarchies. These documents have tables of > > >>> contents and indexes. They also have version controls associated with > > >>> them as entire documents. > > >>> > > >>> One final thought - have you tried to use a browser based, WYSIWYG > > >>> editor to write anything more than a few web pages in length? Not so > > >>> much fun to work with when you have hundreds or thousands of lines of > > >>> > > >>> Again, just my 2 cents. > > >>> > > >>> Ruth > > >>> Si Chen wrote: > > >>> > > >>>> David, > > >>>> > > >>>> We'd definitely help. The only major issue we'd like to get some > > >>>> clarification is the licensing term under which the content of > > >>>> docs.ofbiz.org would be available. In other words, can people > > >>>> incorporate them into other works of documentation about OFBIZ? > > >>>> > > >>>> Secondarily, do you know if Confluence supports RSS imports and > > >>>> exports? That might be a good way to consolidate different people's > > >>>> documentation. > > >>>> > > >>>> Si > > >>>> > > >>>> David E. Jones wrote: > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>>> There was a bit of discussion following my message last week about the More of the messages were more related to the tool to use to run the site. I still like the idea of using Confluence, even after briefly looking into other alternatives mentioned. It is available for free for this use, and we already having a hosting arrangement in place with people familiar with administering the software. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> There is also the potential of consolidating the documentation managed by a small group and more openly managed documentation in the same system by simply migrating the content from the existing OFBiz wiki. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> What I'm more interested in though is: is anyone interested in this enough to help with it? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'm basically saying that the documentation that Undersun has paid about $30k to put together and maintain can be made available for free. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of interest in this, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough about it, or perhaps people don't like the approach? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> There is a lot of work needed to reformat this to work in a different content management system because of different data structures and such. It doesn't matter which system we go to, the structures will be different. So the choices are either to extend the OFBiz content management piece (based on the work that Al Byers did a couple of years ago) to do everything we want, or just move the content to another tool. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> Both will require manual work. My opinion is that moving the content to another tool will require both less time and a far smaller skill set for whoever does it. This is based on some analysis of what would need to be developed, and on a couple of hours of manually moving content from the Undersun end-user doc site to the new OFBiz Confuence server. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> So, a few questions: > > >>>>> > > >>>>> 1. is anyone interested in using this documentation? > > >>>>> 2. is anyone interested in helping move over documentation from other sources? > > >>>>> 3. is anyone interested in spending a few hours per week to help maintain this? > > >>>>> > > >>>>> I'd like to see this move forward... It's basically free content it someone will just help move it over. The only learning is required is about how to use Confluence, and there is pretty good documentation for that. It is also very simple, being a wiki-based system. The work involves copying from a browser and pasting into the WYSIWYG text editor box, reformatting it, and also saving off images and uploading them to the new system and inserting them in the text. > > >>>>> > > >>>>> -David > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> _______________________________________________ > > >>>>> Dev mailing list > > >>>>> [hidden email] > > >>>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>>> > > >>>> _______________________________________________ > > >>>> Dev mailing list > > >>>> [hidden email] > > >>>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>>> > > >>> > > >>> _______________________________________________ > > >>> Dev mailing list > > >>> [hidden email] > > >>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> Dev mailing list > > >> [hidden email] > > >> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Dev mailing list > > [hidden email] > > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev > -- > Kind Regards > Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]> > Sykes Development Ltd > http://www.sykesdevelopment.com > > > _______________________________________________ > Dev mailing list > [hidden email] > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [hidden email] http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/dev |
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