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How to get ahead/get started with Drupal ... (documentation...)

Fri, 08/12/2006 - 11:24 — gpk@drupal.org

Picking up on Mori's suggestion http://www.drupal.org.uk/node/144#comment-89 about documentation (he was IIRC thinking particularly about developers but it could equally apply for administrators as well) and the subsequent discussions at the last dev. workshop http://www.drupal.org.uk/node/151 I'd suggest that what we need is a wiki.

I find the book format used at the main drupal.org site largely unsatisfactory as useful content tends to get buried. I think a wiki is the best means of working on this collaboratively, in parallel with the plans for the workshops/drop-ins over the coming months. Some wiki entries might just point to information elsewhere (e.g. Mori's recent comments on getting relative URLs to work in TinyMCE) - and that might be the main benefit, i.e. making it easier to find the info you are after. I've spent ages searching the drupal.org site for info on various topics, with only limited success.

Any thoughts? Is there a decent wiki module for Drupal yet?

Giles 

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Sat, 09/12/2006 - 21:05 — Robert Castelo
Robert Castelo's picture

Wiki

What is it about a wiki that would make it easier to find information than the book format?

I think the problem with the handbook is the amount of information it now contains (a good thing) which makes it difficult to locate exactly what you're looking for, but this could be improved with a better outline structure and more succinct titles - the documentation team adopted a philosophy of overly descriptive titles, which IMHO makes them difficult to scan, specially in the side menus. 

Thu, 14/12/2006 - 00:50 — admin
admin's picture

Wiki

There's an interesting discusion about wikis going on here:

http://drupal.org/node/102913

 

Wed, 13/12/2006 - 02:55 — dokumori
dokumori's picture

This was the main topic of

This was the main topic of the workshop in November and I certainly would like to continue the discussion and eventually producing a good tutorial / knowledge base.

My intention was initially to create a very basic step-by-step instruction on how to setup drupal, as I had such a hard time making story module to work. For example, you install and enable a module, but you cannot see it anywhere. Why? 

There are plenty of help documents that explain how to configure each functionality e.g. menus, access control, blocks, nodes, but hardly any of them explain how they interrelate or how you do things in sequence. That's what I really wanted when I first started. With this idea in mind, I'm writing a step-by-step tutorial in Japanese (and translation of Views module is suspended for this reason...)
The idea is a bit like 'write task-based documentation first' found in the following document:  http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000365.php

I think the document's usability will increase if it provides an overview (more detailed than a mere list) with links to detailed explanations. This way, readers can follow what needs to be done in what order without being distracted by the detail. But they will still have access to the detail if needed. These details can also be referred to individually, not binded to the context of the main document. 

Also, as Robert mentioned in the discussion, it will really help if key Drupal concepts are explained before going into details.

So before deciding which technology to use, a discussion should be held on what kind of 'teaching method' the document should employ. Then we can probably come up with a solution that is suitable, I think.