Some Assistance Please
Adrien Monteleone
adrien.monteleone at gmail.com
Thu May 25 12:49:11 EDT 2017
Thank you Derek,
This improves my understanding of the current situation considerably.
Certainly as I noted, I have no issue using the present methods.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this.
Regards,
Adrien
> On May 25, 2017, at 9:45 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>
> Adrien,
>
> Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Geert,
>>
>> If the opposite were possible, would that meet the needs?
>>
>> If using the wiki as the collaboration platform opened up
>> documentation editing to non-developer types but still gave you the
>> desired formats, is that what you are looking for or are there other
>> needs?
>
> This was the road we've looked at and attempted in the past -- moving
> the documentation development onto the Wiki and then using that to
> produce the various formats required for yelp, windows help, etc. The
> results were.... less than stunning.
>
> This is why we're reluctant to try again without an existence proof that
> the tools have significantly improved and will produce documentation
> that is at least as good as the current process.
>
>> Looking over mediawiki.org, there are methods using our own render
>> server (or a public one if so desired) and extension plugins to export
>> a variety of formats including XHTML, PDF, ePUB, ZIM, ODF, and yes,
>> DocBook XML. There’s also the option of using PediaPress for people to
>> order a physical bound copy if they so desire.
>
> If we could translate into Docbook then we could leverage the existing
> tools to generate the outputs we require. However, how well does the
> tool translate from wiki -> Docbook?
>
>> The only one presently offered I don’t see included as an extension is
>> MOBI though there are many tools to take any of those other formats to
>> MOBI if really needed. I would think it not too difficult to script
>> the conversion of a resulting ePUB into MOBI. Clicking the MOBI
>> download link could take a trip through ePUB and then the ePub2Mobi
>> conversion to serve the desired file. Is there still a significant
>> case for .mobi files due to .mobi only readers? Is there a current
>> comparison of download stats from gnucash.org?
>
> I dont know if there are download stats available from code and/or www.
>
>> An additional advantage of using the wiki as the working and
>> publishing platform is that formats are generated on-demand by the
>> render server. Thus any time someone downloads a copy of the
>> documentation it will always be the most up to date, rather than a
>> milestone-released static version. If that is not desired I suppose
>> some method of drafts vs. published approved pages would suffice, but
>> that will more than likely be handled by control of editing
>> credentials.
>
> That's not desired; we want the documentation to match the release.
> Someone with 2.4 is better served with the 2.4 documentation. Someone
> with 2.6 with the 2.6 documentation. Someone running 2.4 who looks at
> the 2.6 docs might get confused.
>
>> The render server can also be configured to ‘publish’ specific
>> collections of articles so that the wiki could contain the entirety of
>> the help, tutorial and concepts guide, developer documentation, et
>> cetera, and then particular links will give you a single file of any
>> one of those. So if someone wanted a printed copy of the help and a
>> pdf of the tutorial and concepts guide, they could get each separately
>> all from the wiki and all with the most current approved edits.
>
> The developer documentation is generated by doxygen from the source
> code. Moving that into the wiki would be, IMHO, the wrong thing to do.
> The dev docs should live with the code.
>
>> Just a thought.
>>
>> -Adrien
>
> -derek
> --
> Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
> Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB)
> URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL-IA N1NWH
> warlord at MIT.EDU PGP key available
More information about the gnucash-devel
mailing list