This might be a wrong group to ask, but I will try anyway :)
Why can't we have a simple link to the contributed module's README on top of the module page, beside the "Version control" link ? And a similar "Documentation link".
I think there is quite a few people with a feeling similar to mine - lost in modules documentation. While the priorities of this group are probably more focused on proper docs for the newcomer (which is very important of course), the daily bread of a user that already knows something is pretty hard, especially when it comes to installing new modules. Quite often you dont know where to click first to setup your new module (yes, this got a little better with the d7 modules page), but there is not either a one-stop place to find the docs. I realized it is quite hard for the module maintainers, too : they should keep at least 3 places up to date - d.o/project/my_module, README, and a book page lost in an endless hierarchy (not to mention hook_help and other places).
By giving at least the README an important position and an easy way of finding it, we could "force" the develeopers to keep their docs up to date.
thanks
Comments
+1
This makes totally sense to me.
Definitely a problem
The contrib documentation is not well integrated with the related project pages (or with the online help). Here are some issues that have been filed on the subject:
http://drupal.org/node/955134
http://drupal.org/node/495418
http://drupal.org/node/733908
Can link to readme
Any module maintainer can make a link to the module's README file on the module page, by editing their module page. There's a section for Resources, and you can link to your README or to your drupal.org doc. Many modules have nothing at all useful in the README, and linking to it would not be helpful, so it's left to the module maintainer to decide.
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"can" is the problem ...
Since there is so much freedom, there is no "one place to look" which would definitely help both the users and the developers of the module ... So if there was a default link in the tabs, people would probably feel it is better to have something reasonable there ... even if it was just another link :).
Ambiguity is a problem
I tend to agree. The reader won't know why there is no link to the readme. Was it because there is nothing important in the file, or because the module maintainer forgot to add it? The only way to know for sure is to track it down and take a look.
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Linking to the README.txt is problematic because of versioning. Which do you link to? Do you link to each one in each release on the project page?
Michelle