Why not use wiki for the documentation?

Woudloper · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:23 am

Why not use wiki for the documentation of 'CMS Made Simple' as many other website are already doing it that way and this is very flexible, see the following examples:

There are several Open Source related wiki tools available (like: Media wiki) that can be downloaded.

I think using wiki for the documentation is more flexible then using CMS Made Simple himself for creating the documentation.

palmstrom · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:13 am

I also think that wiki is far more accesible for contributors than docbook files in svn. But docbook has some other benefits... Maybe find some wiki converison tools or use this project http://doc-book.sourceforge.net/homepage/. It's docbook storage with wiki interface, but I haven't test that.

Ted · **Posted:** Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:34 pm

There is a wiki now... but it's an issue that we can't export out to better formats.

To be honest, that docbookwiki looks really nice! That would eliminate a lot of issues with getting it going, and if it exports out to docbook, all the better...

nils73 · **Joined:** Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:32 pm **Posts:** 520

wishy, don't worry too much about docbook. OpenOffice will be able to accomplish this task. All we have to do (which is still a lot of work) is to bring together the content for the structure that has been laid out. Since the day it has been published no line has been written I guess. I will translate some of the stuff I have come up with in my german documentation ... and I will put it into docs.cmsmadesimple.org so that there is at least something.

But I don't think that a wiki is a good thing for docs --- at least not if you are "selling" a CMS yourself. ;-)

Regards,
Nils

Woudloper · **Posted:** Fri Aug 26, 2005 8:28 am

nils73 wrote:

But I don't think that a wiki is a good thing for docs --- at least not if you are "selling" a CMS yourself. ;-)

How do you mean that (selling a CMS yourself?). I think using wiki for the documentation of 'CMS Made Simple' would really be great as this has

Quote:

A wiki (wikiwiki) enables documents to be written collectively (co-authoring) in a simple markup using a web browser. A single page in a wiki is referred to as a "wiki page", while the entire body of pages, which are usually highly interconnected via hyperlinks, is called "the doodle"; in effect, a very simple database.

Source: Wikipedia : Wiki

Furthermore joining to write some documentation is very easy, so people can easily join and set-up a teameffort to create a suitable version of the CMS Made Simple documentation. Discussion articles is easy, fixing mistakes, etc.

nils73 · **Joined:** Wed Sep 08, 2004 3:32 pm **Posts:** 520

Indeed: Wikis are great. But in this case we talk about CMS made simple as a content management system. As such it should be CMS made simple that empowers the documentation. Anybody willing to contribute to the docs may sign-up and join the team. And even more important: by using CMSMS itself we will have a real showcase for CMSMS afterwards.

However if I am the only one who is against a wiki, then of course I will admit defeat and then it should be a wiki. No problem for me.

Regards,
Nils

Woudloper · **Posted:** Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:25 am

nils73 wrote:

Indeed: Wikis are great. But in this case we talk about CMS made simple as a content management system. As such it should be CMS made simple that empowers the documentation. Anybody willing to contribute to the docs may sign-up and join the team. And even more important: by using CMSMS itself we will have a real showcase for CMSMS afterwards.

I know that you can use it as a showcase for your own CMS System, but wiki has all the features you need for working together online, like discuss articles, etc. Search the database of articles, etc. etc. Furthermore different companies are using wiki for documentation, so it will be more common use when wiki is used for the documentation.

Quote:

However if I am the only one who is against a wiki, then of course I will admit defeat and then it should be a wiki. No problem for me.

It does not matter to me either, but a decision should be made fast in order to work on the documentation to go further to the 1.0 release of CMS Made Simple.

Woudloper · **Posted:** Wed Aug 31, 2005 8:37 am

Maybe something else to think about. Today I found the following Extension for Firefox and this can actual work when creating documentation with a wiki, see the following website:

Wikipedia Extension
The Wikipedia extension makes editing of Wikipedia pages easier by adding a new toolbar to your browser and by providing new menu items in the context menu (right mouse key). You can read more details, have a look at it or jump right to the installation.

The following FAQ item is also nice to read:

Quote:

Can I use the extension for other MediaWiki based sites than Wikipedia?

Yes, the extension (version 0.7 or higher) works with all websites that use the MediaWiki software. You can test that with the MozillaZine knowledge base, which is also a MediaWiki installation. Just browse to the web page with your wanted wiki. Then open the right mouse menu somewhere on the background of the page and select Wikipedia->Add user defined wiki. A dialog opens containing the name and the base URL of the Wiki. You may change the name to anything you want, while the URL should be correct.
BTW: To add, delete or manage your user defined wikis, open the preferences dialog of the Wikipedia extension.

Ted · **Posted:** Wed Aug 31, 2005 9:50 am

Well, unfortunately, I played with docbook wiki a bit. It's such a great idea. However, the implementation is so god awful that's it's not usable. It's really a shame, because the concept is awesome.

Anyway, I don't care how it's done. Just as long as it IS done.

Milhaus · **Posted:** Sun Feb 19, 2006 6:15 pm

I also tried to use Dokuwiki, but I had bad experience with its community... I had problem with safe_mode of php and nobody helped me for nearly 14 days. Maybe it was because of summer, but...

Why not use wiki for the documentation?

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