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

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