[Typo3-doc] Wiki people: who's on board now?

[Robert Lemke]

Good morning, folks!

Alex Heizer wrote:

> As for the format, we all need to be doing less work. Not that we should
> be sitting around on our hands, just that there is about a year's worth
> of full-time work in maintaining the documentation for a team of 10, so
> we need to come up with ways to make one action provide what is needed
> for everyone. I, personally, am not attached to any one single solution,
> nor against any solution, and I think we can come up with something that
> works for everyone -- document maintainers, developers, decision-makers
> in customer companies, content editors.

A few months ago we found out that DocBook would be the perfect format for
us but unfortunately we couldn't handle that technically. In the new TER we
now use DocBook internally so I suggest that we discuss changing to DocBook
completely - after a planning and transition phase of course.

> Is there a way we could make a developer extension that can edit the
> Open Office (or other standard document type) documents in real-time,
> like you can with a wiki, then save it again, that might be a way to
> unify a wiki's functionality for a developer, yet still provide a
> downloadable document for a customer, and keep the site navigation and
> management features that are T3's strong points. I am not a programmer,
> so I am expecting a reply something along the lines of "Are you crazy?
> That would take a year to program!" :) ..but that's what I think we
> need, more suggestions on how to get from here to there.

I don't think this is a crazy idea, it's even a must. What we need is a
powerful framework which allows for writing, managing and translating
documentation. I am impressed by the enthusiasm and work you have put into
the TYPO3 wiki and it showed me that we can use it for collecting
information but not for storing the documentation itself.

We certainly need one or more developers in the DocTeam who maintain the
documentation framework in the long run. If we find such a person I'm
willing to provide him with my experience about XSLT, DocBook and
backgrounds of the TER2.

What I'd like to suggest is that you discuss how the perfect framework would
look like and maybe you even find good examples on other project websites.
We could then compile a concept and search for an implementor. This would
also be a project which should be supported by the TYPO3 Association.

Cheers,
robert

-- 
Robert Lemke
TYPO3 Association - Research & Development
Member of the board
http://association.typo3.org