[mapserver-dev] Feedback required: plans for Downloadable Users Manual

[Daniel Morissette]

Jeff McKenna wrote:
> 
> hmm. honestly i am 30 pages in.  I am willing to maintain this document, 
>  and I think the best way to make a usable document is to generate it by 
> hand (of course grabbing existing material along the way).  I hope this 
> method is ok with you.
> 
> My plan is to commit the 'mapserver-users-manual.odt' file into 
> /trunk/docs, and point to the pdf in the Downloads/Current section of 
> the site.  What do you think of that plan?  let me know.
> 

Well, I'm not the one maintaining the manual, but my initial idea was to 
have it in a format that can be published on the web *and* converted to 
a downloadable PDF format. I thought it could have been written in the 
same ReStructuredText format as the rest of our docs and converted and 
packaged into a downloadable PDF using some ReST tools.

The drawback of .odt files (or any word processor files) is that you 
cannot easily track changes between revisions in SVN and cannot easily 
merge changes if multiple people work on the same doc. It's just a 
binary blob that is committed to the repository.

Just an opinion. I wonder what others think.

Daniel
-- 
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/