Wiki manual for x2

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narayan
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Wiki manual for x2

Post by narayan »

Hi all,

I have started the "wikification" of the User Manual.
http://wiki.zabkat.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

The manual is not pretty to look at now, but it will take time to take shape.
I would be using this thread to report updates from time to time, and also call for help as and when needed.

Right now I am focusing only on transferring the contents. This alone will take about 10 days. (I will have to upload all images separately. I want to take this opportunity to update some images, as some of them are based on old windows versions).

Currently I have transferred some pages (text only). They contain junk characters that need to be manually corrected. (Libreoffice's export job is not 100% correct).

Secondly, the pdf-to-wiki conversion is not just the matter of moving the text+images: They are totally different media; and therefore the wiki must be treated in a completely different way.

So I will launch a second round of heavy and ruthless editing later. Don't add anything at present (except local editing).
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Post by nikos »

if anyone wants to give a hand with all this just let me know because people need to be added in the contributors' list before they can modify this wiki
thanks
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Post by Tuxman »

I think MediaWiki is a bit bloated for this task, a DokuWiki or something would have been a better choice.
Anyway, I would like to contribute if I can - so what has to be in there?
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Post by narayan »

OK although you have raised this a bit late, probably we can migrate if it is REALLY worth it.

What we want is-
1. Able to create well-formatted pages with a rich-editor (no hand-coding)
  (including nested tables, images, text+paragraph formatting)

2. Able to export to pdf (or epub) without breaking the original formatting.

3. Security (access-control) in a multi-author environment

Is Docuwiki (or any other system) MUCH better compared to Mediawiki?
(The bloat would not bother us, because we won't be using many features.)

Well, in case we change over, will you take care of migration?
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Post by Tuxman »

Sorry, this is the first time ever that I hear about the plans to make a wiki, so that's why I come up with this now.

Because we don't need many features, a MediaWiki is too oversized, I thought. Basically, all wikis are able to do the same stuff though.
1. Able to create well-formatted pages with a rich-editor (no hand-coding)
 (including nested tables, images, text+paragraph formatting)
FCKEditor integration is possible.
2. Able to export to pdf (or epub) without breaking the original formatting.
Seems so.
3. Security (access-control) in a multi-author environment
A default user manager is included.
Is Docuwiki (or any other system) MUCH better compared to Mediawiki?
"Better" is a question of what you want to achieve. DokuWiki is made for documentation (hence the name), while MediaWiki is probably the most extensible thingy of this goddamn planet, which might be too much in some cases...
Well, in case we change over, will you take care of migration?
So far, nothing much has to be migrated, right?

Oh, and don't get me wrong, I don't say "whoa, what a bullshit". I like the idea of having a documenting wiki after all, and I don't really care about which system lies beneath it. I was just wondering why it has to be MediaWiki. Editing the Wikipedia takes a bit with my internet connection, that's why ...  :lol:

edit: Wikimatrix.org has some en-detail comparison tables, if you are actually interested.
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Post by narayan »

Actually we started this discussion some time ago. Probably you missed that thread.

In our past discussion, wikimatrix was mentioned, but we could not make good use of that resource, because these matrix sites are known to have some defective/biased/outdated data. (I came across a similar debate when selecting CMS for another documentation site. When I quoted from http://www.cmsmatrix.org/ site, several people who had actually worked on Drupal and Silverstripe pointed out that that site had many inaccurate entries.)

So even with wikimatrix, the final decision has to be left to experienced admins. However, none of us have such experience.

Listening to people with ANY amount of exposure would only save us from trouble later. Therefore it would be wise for us NOT to be defensive about any past decision. :)

Even if we have to redo part of the current effort, it may be worth the trouble.

I am only looking for help from people who can migrate a set of interlinked HTML pages using a little scripting.

Thanks for your understanding!
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Post by Tuxman »

Wikimatrix seems to be quite up-to-date now?
Yep, I probably missed that discussion...? The decision to use that MediaWiki bloatstuff was made there? Oh well ...

Putting HTML into a wiki is merely search&replace, so what? :)
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Post by nikos »

i don't think we are moving to another wiki system now, unless you have some killer argument. I suppose mediawiki can do whatever the other simpler wiki can do
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Post by Tuxman »

Well then;
Tuxman wrote:Anyway, I would like to contribute if I can - so what has to be in there?
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Post by nikos »

done, check your email. Please coordinate with narayan for the content
danke!
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Post by Tuxman »

Got the mail, thanks. :)
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Post by narayan »

I have uploaded the manual (text only so far).
I will start uploading the images now.

Just for reference, I have placed each Heading1 and Heading2 paragraph from the pdf manual on a separate page in the wiki. So you can refer to the latest pdf version and check out what is intended to go in each wiki page.

Volunteers can start working on the manual in the following way:
1. Correct the junk characters (delete/rephrase)
2. Start embedding the images in the text
3. Start cross-linking.
4. I had to upload an earlier version 1.7.1.0. All changes later than that will have to be added to the wiki.
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Post by Tuxman »

Random thought while updating the wiki:
We could need some "previous article - next article" navigation bar on every page.
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Post by narayan »

Yes, that is what I meant by scripting.

Another tweak we need is exporting to pdf. Although the manual is not ready yet, it will take some time to install the most suitable addon (out of several candidates). So we may as will start on that too.
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Post by nikos »

it looks that you know more about wikis than I do! if you know how to do it or it is a matter of user rights elevation let me know
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