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If you have ideas about how the processes, procedures, and tools for Drupal documentation can be improved, the Documentation Working Group (a committee that is part of the Drupal project governance structure) invites you to make suggestions. Information on how to do that is on the Documentation Working Group home page.
A DITA documentation distribution for Drupal
Introduction
A couple of weeks ago we launched Modulecraft an awareness & fund-raising project that aims to rally Drupal professionals around a shared effort to create the ultimate toolset for Drupal business. The first fundraising round has as goal the development of a documentation distribution for Drupal that uses a similar approach as the localization server and that enables a distributed/federated documentation architecture for the Drupal project. As a Drupal user you'll be able to get a set of documentation from the drupal.org docs server imported into your own site. You will than be able to edit it and build subsets of the documentation for your own projects. You'll also be able to submit topics that were edited or created by you on your own infrastructure and add them as suggestions to the Drupal documentation server.
The following is a first proposal for the specification of the Documentation system we want to build as part of the modulecraft project. It is by no means complete, and it strongly needs your feedback. This is our first encounter with DITA and our ideas should really be proof checked by technical writers that have extensive experience using DITA. It also contains some proposes a somewhat exotic usage of RDFa, feedback is also very much needed here. In the coming days I'll be adding new sections to the specification here. This is a wiki so be bold! You can add comments either here or at the original posts on the Pronovix blog. I'll be incorporating feedback into this wiki.
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Need a +1 or twelve for a simple issue: Add an "Associations" field to our d.o profiles
Apologies in advance for this crossposting to 11 groups. I recently started an issue to help us get to know each other better: Add field for "Memberships in Associations, Societies, and Other Professional Organizations" to User Profile. The initial response was, "Don't see why not, but let's hear more support before we do." So this is an appeal to read the issue and consider giving it your support.
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Check out Ariane's post...
For anyone needing motivation to get involved with Documentation -- NOW -- check out Ariane's post: http://drupal.org/node/876170
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Volunteers for a more visual Drupal!
Looking for "Volunteers for a More Visual Drupal" can you help us organize a crowd? http://ow.ly/2o21f
Would you like to help make Drupal documentation more visual? Communicating Drupal visually will be a chance to create some good contributions to Drupal.org and the community.
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Does anyone care to track Handbook stats?
Neil (drumm) just responded on an old issue I'd filed, http://drupal.org/node/780982 - I've got enough occupying my brain that I don't think I'm the right person to be tracking stats, but I thought I'd post here in case anyone would be interested in trying to get access to Google Analytics, and occasionally checking in on stats to see if there's any useful info about oft-used handbook pages and such.
If you are interested, drop a note here and we'll see if we can get access to the analytics account.
Read moreDrupalDocs Twitter account
I'm going to be working on a push for help with the D7 docs in the next little bit and thought it might be helpful to register a proper Docs Twitter account https://twitter.com/drupaldocs to announce sprints, ask for help with specific tasks, point out major discussions that happen, etc.
If anyone else wants the password so they can use the account, just send me a message or ping me on IRC and (as long as I know who you are) I'm happy to have multiple people use it.
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Better structured modules list page
Hi all,
Most of us is very enthusiastic about the user experience improvements for Drupal 7. The restructure and renaming is very welcomed and I am sure it will make it much easier for newbies to get started.
There is though one area that I still see as untouched, namely the Modules list page. After installing a number of modules it is quickly becoming a bit of a chaos list, especially since a lot of modules aren't using the "package" field in the [module].info file and thus their module end up in the Other category.
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Looking for Documentation Mentors/Teachers for Summer Garden Technology Project
This summer, we are doing a project in which we learn Drupal/Open Source skills while helping gardening initiatives. Participants will build Drupal projects that foster "Garden Storytelling." Technically, we might create: recipes for Drupal sites, glue modules, and simple sites that act as web services. Our audience is primarily Drupallers & Community Gardeners. There are about 40 participants overall, half of whom are already involved with Drupal in some form.
An important part of what we will be learning will be documentation.
Read moreDocumentation related DrupalCon proposals?
Deadlines for submissions to DC Copenhagen are approaching...
In addition to BoFs, I wondered if other people might have ideas for submitting sessions at DrupalCon Copenhagen to get people interested in Documentation, or make contributions to documentation, in addition to the sprint model?
I proposed a session which will first talk about how to communicate ideas visually, then we'll look at some tough Drupal concepts new users struggle with, and we'll actually make stuff. That 'stuff' can be contributed as documentation or used by others to help teach/evangelize Drupal.
Read moreHow to kill handbook comments
Just had a bit of a lightbulb moment (and maybe this idea has come up before?) about how to eventually kill comments on handbook pages. Someone asked how we could make sure conversations about a particular page were still visible if they were happening in the issue queue instead of as comments.
I thought, and this is what seemed like a good idea:
- add a field on the issue node-add form for a referenced d.o NID (to reference the handbook page the issue is about)
- build a view block for the handbook pages that displays any issues related to the page
Ta-da?
Read moreEditing module pages on drupal.org
I tried searching, but I couldn't find the answer. Forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong place...
I see that I can edit handbook pages. I'm wondering why I can't edit module pages. Many times I've found a module on drupal.org and the module's page is less than stellar. It would be great if I could edit them to help make them easier for others to understand. Since there is revisioning, I don't see the harm (though perhaps an approval workflow moderated by the module's maintainer might be better). Who IS allowed to edit a module's main page?
Read moreTechnical Communication System with Drupal
Per a conversation at the documentation BOF about how we are approaching managing documentation at CSU Monterey Bay, here's a screencast and additional information about our approach. Sorry it's been a week, but after the figurative "Drupal Fever" of last week I had a literal fever that laid me up for a while.
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Examples Project Code Sprint for Thursday
In San Francisco we're going to sprint on improving the Examples for Developers project. You're welcome to join us wherever you are in the world. We'll be meeting 9-5, see meeting information. See you there!
Here's a list of fun things we can work on:
Read moreTechnical Communication System in Drupal - notes from BOF at DrupalCon SF
LeeHunter organized a BOF gathering today at DrupalCon San Francisco related to his thread here about building an awesome technical communication system.
Here are my notes from the session. Enjoy, discuss, etc. They are a bit rough, but hopefully readable...
Lee's Goal: Make a tech communication platform that everyone will want to use, based on Drupal
Addison's Goal: docs.drupal.org, new IA, new tools (not necessarily the same thing as Lee's platform)
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How Can We Take Advantage of Drupalcon
Hey doc folks,
Saturday was great... but the task is BIG.
How can we take advantage of Drupalcon to get more people to help?
Should we do a BOF?
Shai
Read moreDoc Sprint Happening at Drupalcon - Join Us
Come by to help with docs, I'll Photoshop (actually "skitch") you into the picture!
We'll be in 305 after lunch.
Read moreDoc tool user stories
This page is for gathering user stories for the development of technical communication tools within Drupal.
Read moreGSoC 2010 proposal: Development of technical communication capabilities
Last updated by vegantriathlete on Mon, 2010-04-05 21:51
This wiki page is an outgrowth of this discussion. Its purpose is to give us a place to collaborate on the creation of a proposal for Google Summer of Code 2010. Please leave all new feedback here.
We're aiming to put together a proposal that looks something like this. This means we need
Overview:
Description:
Timeline:
Mentors:
Contact Details:
Difficulty:
Why this project is needed
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Docs events at Drupalcon
With Drupalcon coming up soon, (and thanks to the prompting of rfay on IRC) I wanted to start a thread to share some thoughts about what might be happening from a docs perspective.
The Drupalcon site is a little confusing because they talk about doc sprints on both Sunday and Thursday, (http://sf2010.drupal.org/conference/drupal-sprints) but then on the same page it just shows one sprint on Thursday. So my first question, is there actually a docs sprint on Sunday? I'll be around on Sunday myself, so I'd be happy to participate if there's something happening.
Read moreMerging Beginner Docs into Main Docs
I just noticed this group: http://groups.drupal.org/beginner-documentation because someone started cross posting to the (recently opened) main docs group: http://groups.drupal.org/documentation-team
I'm not sure who's actually keeping tabs on this beginner docs group, but I wonder if it wasn't created because of the main docs group having been closed to posting prior to a month or so ago. Anyhow, it seems pretty redundant and the docs team aren't monitoring it as far as I know, so I'm thinking it'd be nice to merge it into the main docs group.
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