[TYPO3-doc] Linking ReST manuals from Extensions into the TYPO3 Core

[Benjamin Mack]

Hey all,

first of all: I am highly impressed with your work and your enthusiasm
and I am happy to see that the doc team is moving forward with ReST -
and it really seems to be a good choice.

Every now and then I create a new extension, and before I release it to
the public, I want to finish the documentation for it. Well, quite a
while ago, I stopped writing manuals in OpenOffice anymore, and started
to write them in ReST, trying to be "in-order" with everything.

So this is the workflow I follow:
 * I pick up a doc-template from git.typo3.org/Documentation/
 * I save it in EXT:myext/Documentation/Index.rst (with images under
Images/ and includes etc)
 * When people want documentation for the project, I just open the
unstyled Index.rst in the browser and read through it.

Do I miss something? Does it make sense to write a blog post to tell
extension developers on how to do that?

So, what I'd like to have is some kind of link from the TYPO3 Core (all
the way down to 4.5) to this unstyled file, if it exists, or to a pdf if
the PDF file exists. My question is: What are your plans for the
extension documentation? The idea that a PDF or HTML version is created
every time an extension is updated in the TER? That you can trigger the
creation from within T3?
And to which rendered version should be linked in the Extension Manager?
The latter change we could easily integrate in the Core (once we know
and agree on what to do).

All the best,
Benni.

PS: Is EXT:mxext/Documentation/Index.rst the right place for all new
extension documentation?