[TYPO3-UG US] Outline of "Learning TYPO3" documentation

[Christopher]

Hi Virgil,

It's nice to see something like this taking shape. Firstly, if you
need any writing in this document, I'd be happy to help. My strongest
areas with respect to what you've outlines are the interactions
between TS/XHTML/CSS involved in templating. Secondly, I have a few
comments about the outline:


On 12/11/05, virgil huston <virgil.huston at gmail.com> wrote:
> Outline of "Learning TYPO3" documentation. Comments and suggestions
> welcome.  I tried posting this to the test.typo3.us forum, but it
> would not hold my login.
>
> Virgil
>
> Manual 1. Installation and Configuration (separate manual without
> upgrade section)
>
> a. Will cover the basic installation process, along with configuration
> and explanation of what is going on in the process (better explanation
> of database setup, ImageMajik, etc.)
>
> b. will have operating system specific pages/sections (will need
> volunteers to write on specific OS, I can do Fedora)
>
> c. the existing manuals will be used heavily, but updated and expanded


Sounds good. A suggestion: the thing about installing Typo3 that took
me the longest to learn was all the damned options in the Install
Tool. An appendix/section or even separate document that's only
concerned with these might be a good idea...


> Manual 2. Learning TYPO3 (from a number of manuals, updated,
> rewritten, and expanded)
>
> Section a. General principles
> 1. Backend and frontend
> 2. Pagetree
> 3. Special pages
> 4. Pages and Page content
> 5. Backend mo0dules


I've recently written a rough but fairly detailed 'getting around the
back end' document for a client (about 20pp) that I could anonymize
and offer as an aid to the creation of this part of the document. If I
took out the parts relevant only to the client's site and to
extensions, it'd be about 15 pages I think. It's organized a bit
differently from what you've shown above, but it's based on training
sessions I've had with different clients.

I'm not sure if you have already identified the target audience for
this document or not--though I guess its targeted  at admins /
developers--but it might be worthwhile to include smallish sections on
TSConfig. I know after 3 years' use of Typo3, this is still something
that gets me from time to time.


> Section b. Templates (combination of MTB and GoLive tutorials)


Given that a) Templavoila is heading for a 1.0 release, b) is rather
popular, c) is so flexible and d) that [as I see from the Typo3
English list] its relationship to TS is not that well understood, I'd
suggest including a section based on FTB too (I've seen lots of
comments in posts to the list along the lines of "I don't know if this
TS works with Templavoila, but..." when in fact virtually everything
works no differently).


> Section c. Implementing extensions (will be a section on each
> extension in the package, as well as an explanation of what extensions
> are and how to use the Extension Manager). Note that each extension
> section will also be a separate manual.


This section could be a monster :)

Robert Lemke is finishing up the TER 2 project as I understand it; it
might be good to hold off on beginning this section until we know if
he'll be making any significant changes to the Extension Manager.


> Section d. Where to go from here - an explanation of the documentation
> structure, support forums, and where to find consultancies to provide
> TYPO3 services


Incidentally, I'm glad you posted this to the mailing list. I wouldn't
have found out about this on the forum for days...


-Christopher