Re: [xwiki-devs] [Brainstorming] Remaining Help Application decisions

On 19 May 2017, at 10:10, Marius Dumitru Florea <mariusdumitru.florea(a)xwiki.com On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 11:01 AM, Thomas Mortagne <thomas.mortagne(a)xwiki.com I don't think we need to keep a low minimum supported version. We can increase the platform version whenever we update the documentation, if it is required.

> On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net> > wrote: >> Hi devs, >> >> We have 2 topics to decide: >> >> * Topic 1: Right now we have 2 help applications. We need to decide if > we merge them or not. >> * Topic 2: Decide if we keep the Help Center app in contrib or if we > move it in platform. >> * Topic 3: Decide if we fold the Sandbox into the Help Center >> * Topic 4: Decide how we handle data created/modified by users when we > upgrade or for newcomers. >> >> Re topic 1, my preference goes to having a single help application and > fold what’s currently in the platform help app into the Help center. > There’s no reason that knowing how to edit a page would be more or less > core than knowing the syntax markup or the Tips Panel. >> >> Re topic 3, I don’t think that the sandbox app is really that useful as > a standalone app and I would be for merging it into the Help application. >> >> Re topic 4, there are 2 issues I can think of: >> - when new users come in, if the pages that are supposed to be modified > (sandbox + the 2 bundled AWM apps) have been heavily modified, then > newcomers won’t see the default content and could just be seeing defaced > content. >> - if the pages have been modified by the user + by the help app then on > XWiki upgrade there’ll be conflicts. >> >> One idea for topic4 is to have the Help app spawn new pages (ie pages > not bundled by the Help app itself) for users to try them out, by having > some “try it out” button. >> >> Re topic 2, the issue with keeping the help center app outside of > platform is that we need to support documentation for multiple versions of > XWiki. For example, we modified the page menu in Xwiki 9.4 and there are > over 10 screenshots to update. However users of XWiki 8.4 (for ex) can also > install this app and if they get the new documentation, it won’t match what > they see in their wiki. The same can be said with the new notification > feature for example. >> >> The advantage of moving it in platform is that it’s in sync with the > platform (ie less work) but we should only document platform features in > it. It also means longer release times since it’s linked to the release of > platform. Note that the rationale for having it in platform would be that > platform help is a core feature. >> >> We could (and probably should) offer some places in the Help Center so > that Extensions could plug their help. And we could probably refactor a bit > the current content of the help center to move help for feature in the > extension UI part of those extensions. >> >> Considering all aspects I think my preference goes to having it in > platform since I don’t think we have the manpower to maintain doc for all > versions of XWiki. >> >> WDYT? >> >> Thanks >> -Vincent >> > > > > -- > Thomas Mortagne >