Topic: New Contribs

[compdoc]

There are many months worth of new contribs, etc listed by month in New Development Announcements.

It would be really nice if these were moved in the proper places in the Contribs sections of this website where ppl can find them.

I never even realized Documentation contained a recent contribs section named New Development Announcements for the longest time. I stumbled over it by searching google. I mean, who would think to look there?

[RonM]

Good point - we're getting far behind (about 4 months) The "New Development Announcements" is linked on the main documentation page, however.

We have been "on hold" since mid Sept when we were trying to organize some teams to do things like this. I haven't seen any progress on this since the Lycoris announcement, though.

Mbachmann has been continuously updating the new contrib announcement with what he finds in weblinks and the forums (thanks!). We have agreed-on procedures in place to list these in the How To Classification, and the authors can list them in weblinks.

Muzo, wellsi and I also have some FAQs and doc and volunteer pages approx ready to go into a rebuilt set of Documentation pages.

We had a bunch of good folks volunteer to help out with most every team when asked last Sept. I don't know if Joe is waiting to set up the whole Lycoris volunteer structure here or what, but I humbly suggest that it's past time to get going on the website part, at least, before we fall too far behind.
Already the prospect looks daunting ;-)

[jcoleman]

Ron,

You guys have done a fabulous job so far.  Please do not wait for input from Joe on this as it seems to have fallen off his plate compared to working out the new distro.

RequestedDeletion and I are still running the website and we would very much appreciate it if you guys would move forward with your plans.

Cheers and many thanks....

-jeff

[RonM]

OK, let's do it! We can at least get the contribs up to date, and redo the main Documentation pages.

We still have the Docteam mailing list here:

http://lists.contribs.org/mailman/listinfo/docteam

archives here:

http://lists.contribs.org/pipermail/docteam

I'll start posting updates and reports there. If anyone wants to participate, or help out with something, you can sign up for the docteam mailing list at the top URL, and send email with suggestions, offers of help, etc., to docteam@lists.contribs.org.

[monkey]

You guys have done a fabulous job so far. Please do not wait for input from Joe on this as it seems to have fallen off his plate compared to working out the new distro.

Nothing has fallen from our plate Jeff.

RequestedDeletion and I are still running the website and we would very much appreciate it if you guys would move forward with your plans.

So why do you need our input?


RonM:

Dude you are king Let me know if theres something I can do to assist etc.

The documentation on contribs is really in a shambles and could do with a a major reorg. Its difficult and clumpsy to find in its current state.

Its something I know needs doing. If RonM would like to head that effort, he has my full support.

[gregswallow]

I would be willing to help re-organize the web links, new dev announcements, howto's, etc into wiki pages organized by category, maybe updating the Howto Classification pages - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=How-to%20Classification - adding something like this:
http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=ContribsForSME6

The web links, new dev announcement and howto classification sections seem redundant - lets combine them all into wiki pages **editable by anyone that wants to help** and organized by category.  And encourage people to use the Recent Changes system - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=RecentChanges - to let people see whats new.

Any comments on that?  Let me know what I can do to help.  

Greg

[RonM]

Greg - that sounds great! By chance, I just added links to NewDev and Contribs for SME6 to the How To Classification page. If you had something more elaborate in mind, sounds interesting. Pls feel free to add it or demo it on another page, whatever.

AFAIK, almost all the wiki pages are editable by anyone, only the main dev and doc pages are locked. Certainly all the how to pages are...

The "difficult and clumpsy to find in its current state" condition referred to by Monkey is, I feel, characteristic of using a wiki. We just need to be continually organising it, and doing cleanup, to keep it as useful as possible. The benefit is how easy it is to add stuff.

The web links, new dev announcement and howto classification sections seem redundant - lets combine them all into wiki pages **editable by anyone that wants to help** and organized by category.

What do you have in mind? I'm very interested... currently, the How To Classification is getting less than 20% of the clicks that the Contribs page is getting, which tells me it could be more useful...

In the meantime, I'll just be going through the NewDev announcements and making sure they're all in metadata pages. This is something I'm sure needs to happen. Jan is done ;-). Anyone who wants to help with that is most welcome.[/quote]

[gregswallow]

If it was up to me I'd scrap the web links section and the 'New development announcements' section after moving that info (whats not there already) into the howto classification pages.  

currently, the How To Classification is getting less than 20% of the clicks that the Contribs page is getting, which tells me it could be more useful...

That section is not viewed as much because take a look at the main contribs page (the one you get after clicking on contribs on the lesft menu):
http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?ContribsPage
...People will click on whats on the top of the page first - There are too may sections with the same information.  The main pages like that are the most important for determining where visitors to the site will go for information.

For example take a look at this page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=New%20Development%20Announcement%20Process - suggesting someone with a new development post a web-link, post to the experienced forum, post to devinfo, edit the howto classification and edit the new development announcements page.   5 things to do - that seems crazy to me.  

I think I will work on a sample/template page for the howto classification section showing what I mean...

[wellsi]

Sorry for the long post (I've been away, ...

At the moment I think that the 'New development announcements' is absolutely vital as it takes information from the many places that developers put it.  

I second the scrapping of the Web-links

Regarding 'ContribsForSME6' this wouldn't scale to the number of contribs that we have - there needs to be some kind of structure as there is on the main 'How-to%20Classification' page.

I agree that the Announcement process is too much, but in practice various parts of that are done. But how should things be announced - often they only go to Devinfo or either Experienced or General fourums - I don't think that this will change. (I have a change proposal lower down)

My comment to this thread is that we need a fundamental review of how contribs are handled.

0) How to store RPM contribs. Often a topic on Devinfo and relevant here.

1) Find a lite way to annouce contribs - and get it agreed on Devinfo or at least some of the prolific developers.

2) Work out how the information can be maintained easily - ideally seperate the data from the presentation. Can Monkey help here?

3) Work out how to allow comments on the contribs and have this fed back to the developer.

If we had the data stored in a database rather than the wikipage the list of contribs for version X or popularity could be easily generated rather than having more hand-crafted pages such as 'ContribsForSME6' (which serves a useful purpose, but I don't think is sustainable)

I will have a lot of time in December - but it would be nice if the effort was useful.

As a short term change should we modify 'ContribsPage' so that it goes
* intro (but only the first two lines)
* How To Classification
* Contribs
* Web-links

As another short term change as the announcement process -
step 1) make clear this is optional
step 2) Post to Devinfo or Experienced forum
Then we accept that it needs some 'Doc' work.
(I can change this if you agree)

Finally does the doc email list work? Or is it just a case of needing to re-register (again)?

[gregswallow]

At the moment I think that the 'New development announcements' is absolutely vital as it takes information from the many places that developers put it.  

I agree completely - but I think that there should be a new development announcements section at the top of every howto classification page - rather than on pages sorted by month.  People can use the recent Changes - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=RecentChanges&days=30 - to see what is new for the month.

Regarding 'ContribsForSME6' this wouldn't scale to the number of contribs that we have - there needs to be some kind of structure as there is on the main 'How-to%20Classification' page.

I agree - but I think that some sort of template is required like that - that can be similar from page to page in the classification section.

If we had the data stored in a database rather than the wikipage the list of contribs for version X or popularity could be easily generated rather than having more hand-crafted pages such as 'ContribsForSME6' (which serves a useful purpose, but I don't think is sustainable)

Wiki pages are sustainable because everyone can help.  I went through all the new dev announcement pages and I made an excel workbook to take that list of contribs, descriptions, links and outputs them into a wiki table format similar to the contribs for sme6 page i made - this page was made just by copying and pasting the output:
http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=test

It is a work in progress, but works pretty easily.  Anyone that want to see it, it is zipped up with instructions here:
http://www.skynetonline.ca/images/contribs.zip

As a short term change should we modify 'ContribsPage' so that it goes
* intro (but only the first two lines)
* How To Classification
* Contribs
* Web-links

I totally agree - someone who has admin/moderator access to the wiki has to do that...
[/quote]

[wellsi]

At the moment I think that the 'New development announcements' is absolutely vital as it takes information from the many places that developers put it.  

I agree completely - but I think that there should be a new development announcements section at the top of every howto classification page - rather than on pages sorted by month.  People can use the recent Changes - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=RecentChanges&days=30 - to see what is new for the month.

I can see that point but I still like these pages as it brings the changes from DevInfo, Web-Links and the forums into one place (not all found from RecentChanges). It is also a barometer of life. If we presume this page contines then the announcement process is also simple
* Annouce anywhere
* Mbachmann updates the monthly page
* Docteam update the HowTo Classification (or successor) and post to Experienced forum - to allow easy feedback.

However it is right to see if it can be improved. Certainly it would be useful to show what has recently changed in the topic pages.

I totally agree - someone who has admin/moderator access to the wiki has to do that...

I can make the change, but are we in the minority of wanting this change?


Thinking about the contribs/How To Classification -

What should this look like in the future?
How should it be maintained?
What is the workload like - it has been seen that there are never enough people to help (or maybe we haven't sold the vision)

At lot of hours has gone into what is there, but it can be all torn up if the replacement is both functional and maintainable.

[RonM]

Hey Ian! Great to see your 'handle' in the forums again. BTW, the docteam list appears to be broken.

Greg, I owe you an apology - the Contribs page, the How-to Classification, even some of the Topic pages _are_ locked! This wasn't how we created them. The Topic pages have a (mostly ignored) feedback section - useless if the page is locked. The whole point of using a wiki is being missed - maybe the locked pages are an artifact of the recent move. I'm sorry, I should have checked first. Maybe we should unlock this stuff.

Some general points:

- Recent Changes, while extremely useful, is problematic when editing existing wiki pages. If the "This is a minor change" checkbox is checked, it will not list the change, if it is not checked, it will list it (if edited) but change the author name. To be sure that news of a new contrib is avail to everyone (in "Recent Changes" for only 3 days by default) the developer would need to create a new page to announce it.

- I feel that the "New Development Announcements" are absolutely vital also. The hardest part of building the how to pages was finding the how tos in the first place, trying to figure out which was the latest, etc. - I'm enormously grateful to mbachmann for sparing us this confusing chore. I hope this will continue in some form no matter what occurs with the contribs pages - as a tracking mechanism if nothing else.

- Announcements _are_ all over the place, and it'd be great if we could reduce that. I agree weblinks are often the least informative method for end users, but it seems to me to be the method most often used by developers - as a secondary method if announced in forums or devinfo, for instance.

- Another issue is alpha-beta-final versions of contribs. Should we list in new dev at alpha but not move to howtos until final announce?

As a short term change should we modify 'ContribsPage' so that it goes
* intro (but only the first two lines)
* How To Classification
* Contribs
* Web-links

As another short term change as the announcement process -
step 1) make clear this is optional
step 2) Post to Devinfo or Experienced forum
Then we accept that it needs some 'Doc' work.

- for now, seems good to me. Some changes, however important, I think are out of the scope of documentation/web site maint (like deciding how to store rpm contribs). For the rest, I think we should post ideas here, and if we can agree, do them. The whole community has a chance to speak up if they want.[/quote]

[RonM]

I downloaded the zip file, Greg - looks nice. Useful to me to organize the Meta-data update, rather than the wiki.

How do you see using this on the site?
replacing weblinks? or topic pages? or what...

[mbachmann]

I will continue updating the New Development Announcements section with whatever i'll find. Would like to see new Howtos also been listed there, no matter if they are local on contribs wiki or remote?

[gregswallow]

I downloaded the zip file, Greg - looks nice. Useful to me to organize the Meta-data update, rather than the wiki.

How do you see using this on the site?
replacing weblinks? or topic pages? or what...

I made it becasue I wanted to help gather all the info on contribs and get it sorted and formatted in a similar way.  Since uploading I added a row at the beginning called category and then they can be sorted in the excel sheet by category before being outputted.  I think the "boxes" can go on the various howto classification pages - replacing the links to a second wiki page with an IFRAME.  For example instead of just having a link on this page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=PHP - 'Install PHP Accellerator' - have a box with all the info on that page - instead of this page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Install%20PHP%20Accelerator

PS - the output sheet on the excel file is locked but there is no password

- I feel that the "New Development Announcements" are absolutely vital also. The hardest part of building the how to pages was finding the how tos in the first place, trying to figure out which was the latest, etc. - I'm enormously grateful to mbachmann for sparing us this confusing chore. I hope this will continue in some form no matter what occurs with the contribs pages - as a tracking mechanism if nothing else.

I have one more idea about the new development announcements - how about we keep the current month's announcements on a separate page (like it is now) - but move the previous months data to the howto classification pages....sound good?

[RonM]

mbachmann - Yes, if you would... anything announced anywhere on contribs, that you see. Thanks very much!

Ian did this early on, and I find it so helpful for discussion I'd like to repeat it here:

Home page - http://no.longer.valid/news/
Doc page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/
Dev page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?Development
Contribs page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?ContribsPage
How To Classification (HTC) page - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=How-to%20Classification
Topic page (example)- Administration - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Administration
Topic Page (example)- - Antivirus - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Anti%20Virus
Meta Data page (example)- - Administration - LDAP Clients - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=LDAP%20contacts
Meta Data page (example)- - Antivirus - Antivirus Scanning for SME 6.0 - Clam Antivirus and Amavis-ng - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Antivirus%20Scanning%20for%20SME%206.0%20-%20Clam%20Antivirus%20and%20Amavis-ng

etc.
So a Topic page is any page linked directly from the HTC page, and a metadata page is any page linked to from any of the Topic pages.

It sounds like you're suggesting to :
A. Remove all metadata pages
and
B. Replace the links to the metadata pages from the Topic pages with the table for that how to

is that right?

I could see where it might be a little easier to maintain these... but suppose it was up to date: how would we be better off?

I think it's a good service to have a page that lists the last month's worth of contribs - I've used the existing one for exactly that purpose

[gregswallow]

It sounds like you're suggesting to :
A. Remove all metadata pages
and
B. Replace the links to the metadata pages from the Topic pages with the table for that how to

is that right?

I could see where it might be a little easier to maintain these... but suppose it was up to date: how would we be better off?

That's basically what I'm suggesting.  But when (you/I) say remove - I mean take all the info from the page and put it into the table.  I think the easier to maintain part is important.  I know you and others have spent counless hours on these pages, and I totally respect that.  I think if I add a 'category' and 'last updated' row my table covers all the info found on a metadata page in a much simpler way.

I think it's a good service to have a page that lists the last month's worth of contribs - I've used the existing one for exactly that purpose

Me too - I look at the current month for whats new.  If we format those announcements in tables then the previous months tables can just be copied and pasted into the howto classification pages - much simpler than making a link and a metadata page I think.

Question for anyone - is it possible to have a link on a wiki page that opens up a new window - ie. target="_blank"

[RonM]

Hey Greg - there's no provision to name the pages when you save them, so you have to name them when you create them.

I tend to use something like :
[linkname | pagename or full URL]

but InterCaps will work too.

[gregswallow]

Hey Greg - there's no provision to name the pages when you save them, so you have to name them when you create them.

I tend to use something like :
[linkname | pagename or full URL]

but InterCaps will work too.

Do you mean name the links in the table?  I guess if you wanted to 'pretty up'/shorten the link to something generic you could change the output page's formulas (for the ones that are links) like this:

Code: [Select]

=IF(Contribs!H2>=1,CONCATENATE(" ",Contribs!H2),"")
to something like this:

Code: [Select]

=IF(Contribs!H2>=1,CONCATENATE(" [Devinfo Post | ",Contribs!H2,"]"),"")

Is that what you mean?  It would look neater that way I guess.

[gregswallow]

Meta Data page (example)- - Administration - LDAP Clients - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=LDAP%20contacts

Actually I will take back my idea to scrap all the meta data pages - I see now that some are more elaborate than others.  While one like - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Install%20PHP%20Accelerator - could be put in a table - the one above contains the howto/instructions.  

I still like the idea of having a table on the howto classification page though - it seems like an easy way to do it as a transition from the new dev. announcement page.  Either way, I am very willing to help out in whatever way you think is best.  

If you like the table idea but want it formatted differently maybe put up an example of one and I can make the changes in the excel sheet to match it.  I made another version that outputs like this: http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=test2 -and I put up the changed excel file here: http://www.skynetonline.ca/images/contribs.zip

[RonM]

Sorry Greg - I should have been more clear. I was trying to answer your question

Question for anyone - is it possible to have a link on a wiki page that opens up a new window - ie. target="_blank"

AFAIK, any word that is a WikiName (with the intercaps) or name in [brackets] will create a "blank" page once the question mark is clicked on, and the page is saved in the edit window. But all the dbase entries for the page don't actually "exist" until it is saved. You could definitely assemble pieces in excel that, when pasted into a wikipage, would give you the question mark, like concatenate "[", A2, and "]". But no page dbase entries would be made until the ? was clicked.

Was that your question? Or am I just being dense?:)

[RonM]

I think there's room horizontally to add more info on the HTC page. Perhaps a link to or the NewdevAnnounce: last 30 days table might also fit on there somewhere. I'm personally mostly interested in anything that makes contribs easier to find on the HTC page - I dunno, Top 10, most recent, bigger font, different organization (instead of alphabetical), etc. This page is where I really wish phpwiki had more capability; i.e. treeview, show/hide... But the page is already way too big.

What do you think of using your tables idea as a "quick update" step? Every so often, tableize the Newdev 30, paste each piece on a wiki page and link it in to the appropriate Topic page(s). That way they'd at least be accessible there, and we could later use Ian's php page to generate the howto.

Downside is we'd need another page w/list of all pages to keep track of what meta page was what. Been thinking we need something like that anyway, though.

[gregswallow]

I meant something similar to a html link that pops up a new window...
eg. <a href="http://blah.com" target="_blank">blah.com</a>
...but I did a bit of reading and I don't think its possible for security reasons.

Did you like the 2nd version of the tables better - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=test2 - Anything you would change/add?

I think I'll gather up more contribs/links in the excel sheet for starters - Were you in agreement to scrap the Web Links section?  Do you think we could get an admin to somehow output or share the contents of the web links database? - http://no.longer.valid/mylinks/ - instead of copying and pasting...

[wellsi]

Were you in agreement to scrap the Web Links section?

For me yes.

Do you think we could get an admin to somehow output or share the contents of the web links database? - http://no.longer.valid/mylinks/ - instead of copying and pasting...

A good idea.

Most of the information has already been put into the HTC, just the recent ones to add. There are also a huge number of links on the HTC that are not in web-links.

Did you like the 2nd version of the tables better

One issue to raise is that Topic Pages such as Anti%20Virus are already big enough - I think that we don't want to make the page any bigger.

Looking at test2 (and the meta-data page) do we really need all that information? In terms of value for the end-user, maintenance and space that it takes  up.

I think that there are some good ideas being made - now to decide which ones to take.

[gregswallow]

Looking at test2 (and the meta-data page) do we really need all that information? In terms of value for the end-user, maintenance and space that it takes  up.

That's a good point - Could combine category and title into one line - eg. '(VoIP) Asterisk', remove the dates (as by the links that should be obvious) and comments (as they should go in the forums).  Really even the contributors name(s) could be left off the table too, as it could be found in one of the links, and the status row isn't really needed - that cuts it down to 4 rows from 10. eg. - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=test3

[RonM]

gregswallow wrote:
Were you in agreement to scrap the Web Links section?
wellsi wrote:
For me yes.

For me as well. Though it means the community will depend on the HTC for contribs. It will have to be kept up to date.

gregswallow wrote:
Do you think we could get an admin to somehow output or share the contents of the web links database? - http://no.longer.valid/mylinks/ - instead of copying and pasting...

wellsi wrote:
A good idea.

Most of the information has already been put into the HTC, just the recent ones to add. There are also a huge number of links on the HTC that are not in web-links.

Would be handy, though we don't need to remove weblinks, just the links to it.

gregswallow wrote:
Did you like the 2nd version of the tables better?

The small ones do look a lot cleaner on the page. I made a test-contribs page using small tables, seems to work ok. Feedback?

http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Contribs-temp

[wellsi]

I like that page
However I think that the Browse link is to subtle when compared to the rest of the page - I think most people would miss it.

What is the relationship between this page and the NewAnnounements page?
* They could both exist
* This could replace that page with a link to 'previous months' at the end which shows the month by month results.
* Who does what.

Would this new mini-table be adopted on the Topic Pages in HTC? i.e. replace the current one-liners?

What should the links link to? Maybe initially whatever is available but then include a TopicPage link - or is that always necessary?

The assumption is that the meta-data pages are kept -  what changes should be made (if any)

Does the feedback go into the Experienced Forum or are there other suggestions?

For the main HTC I was thinking of three columns, to improve the use of screen space - any ideas?

[gregswallow]

http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Contribs-temp

To minimize the work for Wiki moderators (such as yourself) I would keep the Contribs Page more of a static page with bold links to the Howto Classification Section, New Dev announcements, maybe a 'how to announce your contrib' page, and the contribs.org/contribs directory - If you put links to Individual contribs/updates like that then you are the only one that can edit it, and you would pretty much have to on a monthly basis.

[RonM]

Actually wellsi and other folks could edit it, and if you wanted you could get access to do it too (email to staffATcontribs.org). It's a valid point, however, access _would_ be more restricted.

I would want to clean it up and rework it so content was more seperate from markup, anyway. I was thinking the excel spreadsheet to table idea could help, or Ian's php

The question for me is whether we want to try to make the pages more attractive and informational, and if so, how?

It's difficult to do in just the wiki, but maybe that's the best solution anyway. :-)

[gregswallow]

The wiki does suck in terms of lack of layout/columns, etc - It is hard to get used to it in those ways if you are used to html.  Use HTML on the main pages by all means, but those pages should not have content that has to be updated monthly IMO.

I think its better to have a slightly uglier page and let 1000+ people be editors when they have the time, rather than a have a few feel obligated to be editors on a regular basis - I think the wiki works really well for the purposes of this site, and we should try to make it less intimidating to make changes to a page.

[RonM]

OK, good point! Maybe we can make the "structural" pages this way - contribs, HTC, etc, and make a link to "this month's contribs" on one of them. Leave that page, and all the Topic and  metadata pages, editable by everyone.

It'd be good if more folks would take advantage of it ;-)

Thanks!

[monkey]

The wiki does suck in terms of lack of layout/columns, etc - It is hard to get used to it in those ways if you are used to html. Use HTML on the main pages by all means, but those pages should not have content that has to be updated monthly IMO.

We could setup something more suitable for docs then, if you have a suggestion, I can arrange it.

[wellsi]

I would still prefer a decent database for the contrib info and then generate the pages from the database.

This would seperate the content from the presentation.

(The feedback could stay as now in the forums)

This would essentially take the good part of the Web-Links (database, and anyone enter the information) but allow a better presentation, as well as vastly reduce maintenance.

[RonM]

Thanks, Monkey! Hehe - Zope, anyone?

Just kidding...

Seriously, the only value we've been adding with all this is structure, concatenation, links to feedback, and preview info.

The HTC helps folks browse to find contribs, and tries to give info to help them decide which one to use. Search would work pretty well also, gives links to forums, and concatenation; weblinks gives a browseable interface and groups similar items too - it's just short on preview info, and links to feedback.

IMO, the issue we have is that we're trying to "organize" a collection of documents we don't own, or often even host - they're scattered all over the web. Master Sleepy's, Schirrm's Studio, Shad's old site, etc., etc. already have the above features in one way or another, and the HTC only duplicates it, with a consistent interface, but manually, and rather poorly. For instance, in this thread we've spent the better part of a week talking about "New contribs in the last 30 days" and how best to present/update it, when search and weblinks will do this for us, without anyone needing to update anything.

I don't think that adding page layout (or replacing the wiki) is going to do much to change the situation. One can certainly see why e-smith.org posted a short list, and left it at that ;-) In addition, the wiki has benefits that we should acknowlege, and is beginning to see more use - Greg's update script for instance, an inspiring example of community at work, enabled by the forums and the wiki.

All the tools contribs has tried for this purpose over the years have sucked at layout, but as Ian points out, weblinks is the closest to what we are talking about here. If there were some tool (call it weblinks-prime) that would enable the following, I'd certainly be willing to help with the work to move to it:

- global editing of individual components (i.e, remove all "Contribs.org certified" entries)
- sorting and grouping on any attribute or cluster (i.e. all hard disk contribs with GPL licenses for 6.0.1-1)
- required fields in new entry creation
- embedding external page views in an iframe in the output display
- scheduled structural, file change date, and bad link testing
- automatic creation of forum thread(s) either upon new entry or when user clicks a link
- ability to display summary and other metadata info
- clean browseable interface that maintains context and link target predictability
- easy editing/updating by registered users
- good indication of the range of global resources avail - in one place

In another thread, I mentioned a site that seems to have many of these features:
http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=24342.0

While this could be built with AMP or zope, I'm unaware of any webapps that can do this OOB. Otherwise, I'd prefer to stick with what we have, and try to strike the right balance between presentation and community involvement.

[gregswallow]

We could setup something more suitable for docs then, if you have a suggestion, I can arrange it.

Thanks for the offer!

Looks like there are some new features/plugins for PHPWiki  http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/demo/en/ReleaseNotes - I don't know exactly what version is installed on contribs.org, but it looks like some updates are available that will help with design and functionality. (edit - figured out the installed version - 1.3.5pre) - http://no.longer.valid/phpwiki/index.php?pagename=Version - newest released version is 1.3.10

One feature in the new version is a better CreatePage function that lets a person create a page with a default Template - that will really help to encourage people to use contribs.org to publish their work. - http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/demo/dba/CreatePagePlugin.  Lots of other features too.

I'm not familiar with administration of a Wiki, but is it possible that a page's creator have more power over the page they created - ie, undoing changes someone made to it.  I think that would be a good feature - especially to encourage people to post their contribs/howtos on this site instead of their own - which I think we can all agree that is a step in the right direction.

Another wiki admin change I would make is (if it is possible) to have external links automatically open in a new window.  There has to be some sort of global setting for that, and if not there should be.

[RonM]

Been a while since I looked at the plugins - there do seem to be some good ones:

Rich Table adds a true table to the wiki (won't nest tables though)

Unfold Subpages opens all or part of sublinked pages

Wiki Blog would work for feedback if we want - I put an example linked off the How-to Classification Admin page

Only wiki blog seems to be installed here so far

there's also a global text search and replace plug in - need admin access for it.

The biggest thing left IMO is link checking - we could use a client based tool for this, or maybe dev a plugin for it ourselves?

[gregswallow]

I would still prefer a decent database for the contrib info and then generate the pages from the database.

That would be cool, but I would prefer to make it easier for someone to post a contrib to contribs.org than put the same info on their own website.  Whether it is a simple howto, rpm files or whatever.  With some of the new plugins for the Wiki I think that is possible...There is an upload plugin that looks interesting - http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/UploadMechanism - and the CreatePage plugin I mentioned I think would let us make a template(s) for contribs and then authors could easily post their own, rather than making a forum post and relying on RonM and mbachmann, etc to make a metadata page.  

Lycoris has version 1.3.10 on their dev website - http://dev.lycoris.com/index.php/SystemInfoPlugin - so I know someone there could help update contribs.org with all the new features...Thanks in advance

[jcoleman]

Guys,

We will be glad to help with new plugins.  Give us till the new year to get going on this as we are all trying to end up our real life business issues :>

If you folks will get a list of plugins together that will help out, we can start addressing those needs.  Only one caveat.  The version of phpWiki that is used here is a bit hacked for use in Xoops.  Not all plugins may work.

BTW, isn't the Weblinks app a database :>

Cheers,

-jeff

[RonM]

Thanks Jeff!

The plugins that have been suggested so far:
RichTablePlugin
http://www.koders.com/php/fidDD34CD519159C46B5091F1C471DE8B00C2B8C3D4.aspx

A PhpWiki plugin that allows insertion of tables using a richer syntax. Use for column layout to conserve vertical space. Table content freely editable.


PageTrailPlugin
http://www.koders.com/php/fid4176544783422EA50126315EF84E7B77DD9DDB9F.aspx

Put this in each page to store the trail. Perhaps replace the manual bread-crumbs at the top of each MD page.


UnfoldSubpagesPlugin
http://www.koders.com/php/fid05CD03C629FD7E630D0CE141B14BEFDF0FD6413C.aspx

Lists the content of all SubPages of the current page. Potentially useful to include feedback display on MD page.


CreatePagePlugin
http://www.koders.com/php/fidC042F0AD76911BED2C1A9FBA97DCDAE207D9129D.aspx

This allows you to create a page geting the new pagename from a forms-based interface, and optionally with the initial content from some template. Not necessary for us to create MD pages (Ian's php page is better), but might encourage new community submissions.


WikiBlogPlugin is already installed.


Potentially more controversial - must be Admin to run

UpLoadPlugin (or WikiFormPlugin)
http://www.koders.com/php/fid64802171A16F195E25753A1271AD6270B0066019.aspx

Allow Administrator to upload files to a special directory, which should preferably be added to the InterWikiMap. (This is a replacement for MagicPhpWikiURL forms)

I'm not sure what Greg has in mind for this.

WikiAdminSearchReplace
http://www.koders.com/php/fidC5D2E7D8AA9A5B0D1D3875134EC87E5A8ED44514.aspx

Allows global search-and-replace. Able to exclude pages and include columns. Necessary for professional maintenance of the wiki info. An example of use would be to remove "Contribs certified" entries, or to change all feedback urls to a named wikiblog page.

[mbachmann]

So weblinks-prime would provide an editable weblinks section? I really would like to to a little editing work on this. It looks ugly.

[gregswallow]

....regarding upload plugin....
I'm not sure what Greg has in mind for this.

I can see it as a way for people to upload their contrib rpm files to contribs.org - maybe rather than creating more contribs.org/contribs directories - no administration work required.  I think the plugin will work for any authenticated users, not just administrators.

I was looking at phpwiki - sems to have changed quite a bit from 1.3.5 to 1.3.10 (all the mentioned plugins are included in the new version).  Might be easier to replicate the xoops hacks into the new version.

[cranky]

Would an alternate xoops module be of any use here?
http://www.zonatim.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=WiwimodHomePage

Perhaps Jeff, et. al. could add the module (v0.7.1) on a temp basis for us to evaluate?

If phpwiki is more powerful, then forget about this...
But on the surface, the:
- file upload support
- page navigation and TOC
- xoops comment support
- etc.
might help the doc organization right out of the box without waiting for custom hacks to phpwiki.

Just a thought...

[jcoleman]

Would an alternate xoops module be of any use here?
http://www.zonatim.com/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=WiwimodHomePage

Perhaps Jeff, et. al. could add the module (v0.7.1) on a temp basis for us to evaluate?

If phpwiki is more powerful, then forget about this...
But on the surface, the:
- file upload support
- page navigation and TOC
- xoops comment support
- etc.
might help the doc organization right out of the box without waiting for custom hacks to phpwiki.

Just a thought...

Taking a look at the features of Wiwimod, it looks cool.  But after installing it in a test xoops environment, we would be giving up a HUGE amount of features and almost all of our existing pages would have to be completely rewritten.

Thanks for the tip tho....

-jeff

[RonM]

Is it time to re-open this thread and see about installing some of the plugins or upgrading phpwiki?