Mapserver documentation project

[Aniruddha S. Khadkikar]

Hi all.
I think perhaps this issue has been discussed earlier but needs to be 
seriously taken up asap. It is necessary to start a parallel Mapserver 
documentation project - perhaps following the wikipedia model which will 
be easier to build. There is already a large database of problems 
encountered and solutions offered in the mailing list archives. These 
archives provide a rich source of information that needs to be 
incorporated into such a user manual (that should also be downloadable 
as a single pdf file). I suggest the following architecture of the 
Mapserver documentation project:

THE MAPSERVER DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
1. Introduction, architecture and overview
2. Compiling Mapserver under windows and linux (rather sketchy for newbies)
3. Installation and configuration (needs elaboration)
4. The all important mapfile (needs lot of work at this front with 
example files)
5. PHP Mapscript - dynamic mapfile generation (I remember the ppt from 
one of the mapserver conferences - something on that line)
6. Database connectivity (even now lot of problems from newcomers are 
seen on mailing lists)
7. Projections and reprojections
8. Layer querying and building classes
9. Mapserver clients - front end possibilities

I believe the existing documentation allows user contributions already. 
I may be mistaken. If this effort has already commenced we need to 
buckup if we want more followers of Mapserver. The ms4w is a great way 
to start with but invariably everyone likes to know the guts of the system.

These are random thoughts voiced loudly.
Thanks for your time and patience

Aniruddha