[gdal-dev] [SeasonOfDocs] Offers for GDAL documenting

[Cameron Shorter]

Lynden, I'm looping in the gdal and seasonofdocs email lists with your
permission, because:
* This is a good question and I think there are others interested in the
answers
* People on these lists will likely add more value to my answers.

Lynden, your approach sounds good. I'm not familiar with the mechanics of
adding docs to the gdal. I'm hoping the gdal team will provide an answer
here.

With regards to what content to write, we have technical writer volunteers
on the season of docs email list keen to help with structure. (A few of
them live in Melbourne, Australia with you.)  When you are ready we can set
up a meeting to plan your structure and approach.

A starting point for you to think about is to define the doc types you are
writing, as described here:
https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/

Cheers, Cameron

On Thu, 20 Jun 2019 at 11:34, Lynden Noye <lt.noye at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Cameron, what should be my process for getting started?
>
> Can I just open PRs against the docs in question in Github? Should I shoot
> the link around the mailing list when I've opened a PR?
>
> Or is there something more formal that needs to happen with regards to
> approval before getting started?
>
> I didn't want to bother the whole mailing list with these questions,
> unless... that's its purpose? haha
>
> On Thu, Jun 20, 2019 at 9:46 AM Lynden <lt.noye at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I like the idea of dipping my toes in by looking at the command line
>> flags like Eli mentioned for ogr2ogr and ogrinfo and adding some of the
>> more basic things.
>>
>> Then I could compile my ideas for some more tutorial or example guides
>> somewhat like Mapbox’s JS/iOS SDK beginner examples?
>> https://docs.mapbox.com/ios/maps/examples/
>> They should have simple high level goals relevant to the tool but broadly
>> applicable to the basic tasks people may have.
>>
>> Lynden
>>
>> On 19 Jun 2019, at 05:42, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Doing some cross-pollination of ideas between gdal list (techies) and
>> osgeo season of docs list (writers)...
>>
>> Feedback Lynden received from GDAL community based on his offer to help
>> with docs ...
>>
>>
>> On 16/6/19 2:02 pm, Lynden Noye wrote:
>>
>> While Cameron is not wrong about me being a dev, that's been a more
>> recent thing for me professionally, I'm a much more experienced UX & UI
>> designer ;)
>>
>> Cameron, I've subscribed to this list too, I look forward to hearing back
>> on where I might be able to help out!
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 15, 2019 at 10:00 PM Cameron Shorter <
>> cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi GDAL folks,
>>>
>>> I'd like to introduce you to Lynden who has dropped by our OSGeo Season
>>> of Docs community. He is a developer, has used ogr2ogr, is an "expert gdal
>>> newbie", and is keen to give back to GDAL through documentation.
>>>
>>> Do you have thoughts on where there are documentation needs, and where
>>> Lynden could be most impactful?
>>>
>>> Cheers, Cameron
>>>
>> On 17/6/19 10:43 pm, Even Rouault wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> this is really great news ! Given my experience with the project, I'm rather
>> far from being representative of someone less familiar with it or with a non-
>> developer profile, so thoughts from the broader GDAL community on what they
>> feel is the most missing would be welcome.
>>
>> One thing I've in mind - this is rather a detail - is that we lost a bit of
>> content (build requirements for each driver) during the Sphinx migration, as
>> pointed out byhttps://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/issues/1204#issuecomment-498624481 , so this
>> could be a potential task.
>>
>> More generally, I feel we might need more tutorial-like / how-to style
>> documentation. The current documentation is hopefully rather decent as a
>> reference guide, but lacking on the quick-start side. On the wiki, there are
>> some source of information, mostly fromhttps://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/UserDocs , that could be interesting to
>> migrate partly on the main documentation, but with a critical eye (some of the
>> hints might be outdated due to later improvements, etc)
>>
>> Lynden, perhaps you've also suggestions from your practice of the project and
>> its documentation on what you'd like to see added ?
>>
>> Even
>>
>>
>> On 18/6/19 1:16 am, Eli Adam wrote:
>>
>> There are some things that are very basic that might make the
>> documentation more understandable to a beginner.  I'm not sure if
>> these things are true or I've made them up or they are supposed to be
>> too obvious to state.
>>
>> -nln = New Layer Name
>> -nlt = New Layer Type
>> -a_srs = assign spatial reference system
>> -t_srs = target spatial reference system
>> -s_srs = source spatial reference system
>>
>> -ot = output type
>> -of = output format
>>
>> Are those true?  If not, I've used them to better understand (and
>> remember) the options.
>>
>> On 18/6/19 3:15 am, Ivan Lucena wrote:
>>
>> Talking about basics... Most of the SDK we download to build drivers
>> comes with an INSTALL file (.md or not) and that is what people usually
>> look for when they decide that they need to download and build a FOSS. But
>> GDAL doesn't have that. Yes, the information is there, somewhere but it
>> would be nice to have it more accessible for newbies.
>>
>> On 18/6/19 6:11 pm, Jeremy Palmer wrote:
>>
>> I think we could do with documenting the
>> https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/ConfigOptions in a more complete way
>> and including it in the main website documentation. We could also consider
>> including all config options that apply to a driver such as
>> https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/gtiff.html#configuration-options
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Technology Demystifier
>> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>>
>> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>>
>>

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant

M +61 (0) 419 142 254
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