Help system
This group is intended to discuss possible improvements to Drupal's Help system, and collaboratively write the documentation(as help topics) for Drupal 7. Feel free to post feature request or initiate a discussion regarding help mechanism in other web software. But the best is to contribute to the documentation task!! :) Ongoing help system issue is over there.
Everyone's invited
.. to collaboratively write a comprehensive documentation on the features provided by the modules in Drupal 7 core.
Contribute new Help Topic
Contribute to existing topics
Use About or Introduction
As I was adding help pages I noticed that the ones that had already been added were titled About Modulename. I was titling mine Introduction. So 2 questions:
- What's better About or Introduction?
- I had removed the module name from the title because it will automatically be within the module group. Should we keep the module name or should it go?
Style Guidelines for Help System
We should start to create a style guideline for the help system. This would help to make the help files consistent in look and feel. I have started a wiki page here http://groups.drupal.org/node/17300
Hopefully we can discuss how each part should look here and lay it out on the wiki.
Edit: Wiki page removed look at the other pages posted below.
Interested in contributing to core documentation?
Drupal 7 will (hopefully) see the introduction of a new and completely overhauled help system (read: starting from scratch).
However, this mean that all documentation must be re-written.
This is not a job for one person! We need everyone to pitch in and help (no pun intended). If everyone can write two (2) pages, then we'll be very well off.
The kind people at the Help System group on groups.drupal.org have assembled a workflow for you to take part in. Here's how to write a help page for a module:
- Log in here. If you don't already have an account, you can log in with
YOUR_DRUPAL.ORG_USERNAME@drupal.orgas your usename and your drupal.org password as your password - Navigate your browser here to start your new wiki page.
- Choose "Drupal Documentation Task" for the "Group categories" vocabulary; and
- Choose the name of the module for which you are writing documentation for the "Help topic module" vocabulary.
- Fill in the title and the body to those that you wish to appear on your help page
- Be sure to adhere to the guidelines
If everyone can do two (2) of these, we'll have all the help pages in core done in a matter of days. And guess who it starts with? You!
If you would like to edit an existing page, simply go to the Help System group, find the page along the left, click on it, and click the edit tab.
Help and support "welcome page" mockup
Awaiting suggestions before I set my own standards
Looking for speakers to present a 'Help Drupal Help' session @Szeged Drupalcon
The Help GSOC project and the general effort to improve Drupal's Help system are an important part of improving the Drupal user experience.
I'm looking for people who could help produce a session on 'Help' in Drupal. This is a rough sketch for how a session proposal might look:
Help Drupal Help
Overview
Improving the Drupal UX through better copywriting and smarter Help features.
Agenda
Guided Tours for First timers
glad to start of the discussion here. :)
Recently there has been a lot of talk about usability problems. I think the solution to this also lies in a better help system.
Drupal is not a trivial piece of software, that we can make a interface and expect the users to understand everything about it. So lets face the problem.
