CMS Made Simple Forums

Here is a link to a project in the forge where you can download "How-To" manuals for the CMSMS core and various modules. These documents are meant for the End User (ie. Secretaries, Content Editors, etc.) They are in OpenOffice ODT format so you can open them, modify them as needed and then generate PDF's for your clients.

They will be updated as often as possible. If you would like to contribute do a SVN checkout on the module and you will have access to the files/images needed, then just get me the ODT and I will release the document upon review and approval.

http://dev.cmsmadesimple.org/projects/enduserdoc

I like it End Users have nice documentation targeting them. Thanks.

May I suggest to consider asciidoc http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/ as the dev format of the doc ? A pony would be an asciidoc repository on github or gitorious

Pierre M.

I'll look into ASCIIDocs. The original docs that I started with were made in ODT so I kept going. My only concern is keeping it nice looking for those that will be reading it. Those reading it aren't source code geeks like we are.

I agree the End User should have easy nice looking documents. Doc formatters can do this. I was only suggesting a try of asciidoc as a "dev" format (for geeks writing the doc) the End User reading it pretty from generated xHTML/CSS, PDF, RTF...

Pierre M.

Hi,

Another media type is available via
my shop.
It is a book in pdf format that is for sale and has various chapters on maintenance of content.

[Edit]As of January 12th, 2009 a new version of the book is available. It includes more information on the admin part of the back end. Module descriptions have been updated and Guestbook has been described in detail.[/Edit]

Duketown

This is excellent; thank you. 

Brilliant!!!

Hi,
I just ran into this documentation. The idea of writing a documentation for the end user is great – thanks for your efforts! Surely it should be expanded but I can very well feel that it‘s a long and energy-consuming effort. Thanks for having started it …
Maybe it can be expanded – it‘s also helpful for the admin as there are many modules and one cannot know every single one!

Reinhard

(I haven't checked out Duketown‘s offer, so I cannot comment on him, sorry).

I've been having an idea for a module called "Owner's Manual" (which would reside in the "CMS" menu of the control panel) where the site developer can leave instructions for the site owner. This document is editable by an admin, but read-only to others. There can be a section below, maybe, for site owner notes.

These custom instructions would be something like, "News category X controls this part of the website", "Here's how you change this, etc".

For very basic websites (4 pages and contact page), the stock end-user manual might be overkill, and custom instructions would help the average user.

For more complicated websites with news, adjustable sidebars, photo galleries, etc, the end-user manual won't be adequate, as it won't have our add-ons nor understand how we arranged it.

Of course this module would have a link to the official document as well.

Any module like this? Any modules where you can leave back-end content? How do you leave instructions for your clients?

As far as I know it isn't something that is available. It is a great idea though!

There are a few issues with this end-user doc.

1.) Doesn't cover many modules
2.) Could require a lot of editing to fit custom setups
3.) The document is either lost in an array of icons and folders or it is printed and stuffed in a filing cabinet never to return again.

Having something built right in that allows for Admin editing, would essentially solve all of these issues.

Maybe I'll make a module for it then! I have so many ideas and no time to do them all.. I think I have three in-flight right now. I'm still un-published.

Almost... there... Hopefully I'll be done today or tomorrow with the OwnersManual module.