Goal

To be able to produce the Tiki 1.7 (and later) release documentation in an easily maintainable and distributable fashion. Other parts of this goal include:

• Maintain documentation source in native Tiki format as the ultimate TikiWikiCaseStudy
• Ability to produce normal output formats (list to be determined: PDF, Word, etc)
• Easy for each class of users (developers, site administrators, end-users, etc) find only what they need
• Easy for developers to create documentation that maintains consistency in both content and format
• Easy for site administrators/content managers to develop local-site documentation and still be able to upgrade with new Tiki releases

Requirements

• Must allow for professional quality documentation, including graphics, charts, code snippets and other objects
• We want the Wiki doc to updatable between versions and the ability for the site operator to annotate those docs we must be sure that we don't step on those local changes.
• Different versions of the documentation should be developed for the following audiences, each of which has its own, unique needs
• Each topic (for example, hotwords) should be introduced with a brief conceptual overview, a tutorial, a comprehensive how-to section that documents all relevant capabilities, a "where do I go from here" section, and (where appropriate) a reference section.
• All documentation should be accessible from two perspectives:
  • How do I use THIS FEATURE?
  • How do I perform THIS ACTION?
• All documentation must meet accessibility guidelines (which the editor will need to specify)
• All documentation must be readable at a 10th grade level.
• All new pages are added to the hotword list so that it is always linked throughout the wiki. (Suggested new features: Automagically add new Wiki page names to a new version of the hotword list, called Index. This should be presented attractively, with pagination and a search box.)
• All new pages are incorporated into the wiki structure in an appropriate category (or a new category is created).
• All terms and concepts are defined in a separate glossary page; page is hotworded.
• Each page is categorized according to subject descriptors developed by the author and editor.

  
  

Users

Evaluators of TikiWiki

End users

Site Administrators

Power users

Content Managers

Developers

Tiki

Site Customization/plugins

Partner integrators

Templates

Types of Documentation

Marketing

Installation Guide

Getting Started Guide

Feature Reference Guide

Developers Guide

Site Content Manager Guide

Site Customization Guide

Adding local plugins

Creating site specific documentation

Customizing site look-and-feel including theme developent

Components

Wiki pages

Output utilities

Input utilities

Content standards

Distribution of native format

Distribution of output formats

Status/tracking of documentation

Roles

Release manager

What Bryan Pfaffenberger referred to as:

This is the task master, someone willing to assign and track/report status. Watches the changelog like a hawk.

Standardization

What Bryan Pfaffenberger referred to as:

A good technical component to this would be the content templates proposal from Chris Kaleiki (anenga).

Feature developers

Non-technical developers

This is really, I think, the most valuable set of contributors to documentation quality. Here is where we make the documentation really useful for end users and content managers. This is where I expect many of the case studies and examples/howtos of how to use the different features of Tiki together are going to come from. Also included in this would be the marketing aspect.

Editors

Checks to make sure documentation meets criteria and is complete; examines and approves/rolls back changes to wiki pages, examines and approves/deletes reader comments (like those appended to the MySQL documentation)

Utility developers

A sub-group of Tiki developers developing utilities related to documentation. This includes things like:

• PDF generation
• Wiki structure based output

Translators

I gotta mention them here, but I really don't want to have to think about this right now. I can only think in one language at a time. 😐

Actions/Next Steps