GC Concept Guide Review and Wiki Pages

[Thomas Bullock]

Hi Geert,

Thank you very much for your offer.  I too would like the information to be available as soon as possible for general use by any interested persons.

Your putting it into a wiki would relieve me of a felt (on my side) pressure to get this done.  It is a kind and appreciated offer.  I could send you a copy of the file if you do not have one available.  Just tell me.

Part of my pressure is to form documentation for 2.4 as well as to enhance it where I think it could use it.  To get more efficient in making patches has required me learning several new (to me) tools.  Also, I agree with Cristian Marchi that there is duplication between the Guide and Help manuals.  It is great that he wants to work on sorting that out.

If I am not mistaken there is also duplication among the wiki pages which should be rectified by making them more topical with cross-linking to the main place treatment of a topic is given.

Finally, I think we could have a feature that we could think of as a "site map".  It would be a way for persons to search all aspects of documentation: Guide, Help, FAQs.  Key words and aliases pointing to key words constitute what I am thinking about.  Each key word is a link to a page.  On that page are references to all places where the key word is discussed, explained, used.  This certainly would need for all documentation catch-up to be completed before it was attempted in earnest fashion.  This last idea really is only a dream at this point.  Much, Much more needs to be done before that is a realistic project.

On a different topic while focused on documentation, I note that there are no page numbers to use as references.  That may be explained by using XML and HTML versions of the manuals.  Has anyone ever brought up the idea of using numbered sections and segments within the chapters' numbering system as a means of cross-referencing to related ideas within the manuals?   To some extent this seems present, but not as extensively as I think it might.  This idea, if adopted, should  be implemented only after the duplication removal gets completed.

Just some ideas to ponder.

Tom

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Geert Janssens [mailto:janssens-geert at telenet.be]
> Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 11:06 AM
> To: Thomas Bullock
> Cc: gnucash-devel at gnucash.org; Cristian Marchi
> Subject: Re: GC Concept Guide Review
> 
> On Friday 15 October 2010, Thomas Bullock wrote:
> > Geert,
> >
> > I agree with your thought and fully intended and intend to do what
> you
> >  advise.  The problem is that I have to learn how to write a wiki
> and
> >  incorporate its features into what I write.
> >
> > Right now that is a time sink and I have other tasks that in my mind
> >  precede that in urgency.  Cristian's mails were posted  before I
> could
> >  learn how to write a wiki and put my stuff in that format.  Thus,
> the
> >  state you find us in.
> >
> > Sorry my slow learning curve is impacting helping others.
> >
> Hmm, don't worry. That's not why I wrote my suggestion. I surely
> wouldn't give
> you the impression you are holding me or anybody else back. On the
> contrary,
> your work so far has helped Cristian already and surely inspired
> others to
> have a look at the documentation.
> 
> About the wiki, the syntax in general really isn't that complicated.
> In fact,
> when I edit wiki pages, I usually look at other sections to learn just
> enough
> to make my changes.
> 
> Do you think it would be helpful if I put your text into wiki ? That
> would
> give you an example of wiki markup on your own work. Perhaps that
> makes it
> easier to understand what to do.
> 
> It's probably clear by now I personally prefer to use the wiki for
> this kind
> of collaborative work, but I don't intend to push you. I intention is
> to offer
> a helping hand, but if this is uncomfortable for you, I'm equally
> happy if you
> continue on the text as you are working now.
> 
> Geert