[Qgis-community-team] web/doc site structure

[Otto Dassau]

Hi Richard,

Am Tue, 20 Nov 2012 09:17:06 +0100
schrieb Richard Duivenvoorde <richard at duif.net>:

> Hi,
> 
> currently it is messy at documentation.qgis.org
> 
> there are actually two versions currently available there:
> 
> http://documentation.qgis.org
>    will point you to
> http://documentation.qgis.org/html/en/user_manual/
> 
> which is in my point of view obsolete (it is an old version!)
> 
> This should be the starting point
> 
> documentation.qgis.org/html/en/

I changed that

> I have been trying to create a tree with two stems:
> 
> docs
> website
> 
> But this broke the poodle stuff (I think). I do not have access to the 
> server, so I cannot fix it myself.
> 
> The situation where we have the idea that we can both use poodle (with 
> very short commit/push actions) and working via github/po files for 
> translation will probably fail because of the git-conflicts that are 
> likely to occur.
> 
> I've been fighting with the automatic table of contents (TOC) creation 
> of Sphinx. The stuff you see in the left bar is actually sphinx 
> generated. I wanted it to be a logical 'menu' like toc, but I think I 
> failed.
> 
> So please help or give some input to decide:
> 
> - is the division in docs/website nessecary or only bloat (we can easily 
> go back to the version without website stuff)

I don't know from translation side but would prefere to have it divided as
you did.

> - should we decide for ONE translation process (eg only poodle, because 
> you need the least technical knowledge (as a translator))

you mean one web and one desktop way or only web based? If yes, I would
support it. but we should have the possibility to work on the translation
locally as well.

> - should we create the menu stuff in the left bar ourselves (by 
> generating a truly tree like structure in which we give every node their 
> own menu.html)

what is the advantage? Why do we need it?

> - Paolo's point about being en-centric is very valid, please think with 
> us about a solution to for example start with a russian or spanisch help 
> text for a doc (IF this is possible)

this is an interesting point but at the moment I also don't have a solution
how to solve this. I guess for now we need to stick to english and add all
foreign tutorials to the wiki and keep the idea in mind.

> - we need a tree structure in which we then also can house little help 
> articles like the person in Paolo's mail was mentioning

also a good idea, if someone has an idea how to do it. 

> - why is the documentation not rebuild every day (crontab is failing?)

I will test/fix it

> I still fully support the sphinx/rst model, but we need some more love 
> to put in it to get this thing running.

yes, i agree and man power, of course. There are many nice ideas but we
don't have enough people for all these ideas at the moment. A few people
started with the documentation/translation, now we extended it to create a
new web. That's fine, but we should concentrate on these two topics for now,
collect the ideas/tasks in the wiki and work on it later.

I hope more people will find time to help and join the discussion and
work ..., but I also know it is not that easy, because quite deep knowledge
of rst/sphinx/... is necessary. 

Anyway thanks a lot Richard and all others for your effort so far!

Regards
Otto

> Regards,
> 
> Richard Duivenvoorde