Re: [xwiki-users] Need some Help & Explanations

I want to echo Ken's thoughts, and provide another data point to represent the beginners out there who may be turned off by the learning curve. This is something of a long post but I hope my concerns will be helpful to others. XWiki is a great product with a lot of potential for our organization (internal information exchange). I like it a lot, and I'm convinced that in the long run it's better for us than any of the other options. I'm primarily a .NET developer familiar with Java, Python, SQL, etc. I've set up the the whole shebang from scratch using SQL Server, Tomcat, and all the rest. I've created a new space, added some lengthy content with images, and restricted views of unregistered guests. Yet I'm still dismayed at how hard it is to get the most basic information on editing the very first page we all see. The page itself says it's easy! Just try editing in WYSIWYG - it quits. Try editing in Wiki mode - unintelligible. The documentation simply says "just edit it" (I'm paraphrasing), but that doesn't work, the macro doesn't make sense yet. I've spent many hours trying to understand what's going on with the dashboard tool (e.g., $msg.get), spent hours rummaging in the database schema looking for "Welcome to your wiki" so I can change it to "Welcome to MY Freaking Wiki!" (just kidding on that last part). I understand (now) that I can set up a new page and maybe in an hour or so figure out how to get the home page redirected there, but that is a lot of work for simply wanting to change the introductory text in the main page to say something meaningful to my co-workers to get them interested. Then I can go on the learn the programming part later. The point is that for folks like me there is a critical gap between getting things running and taking the first meaningful step towards controlling the application. If I am also not a programmer, then that gap is even larger. Questions: - I'd like to see a tutorial-style breakdown of how the dashboard app/tool thingy works. Having such a tutorial linked on the documentation page would be ideal, it would be a great learning tool and introduction to the more interesting features of XWiki. - In that tutorial, I'd like to know how to find out where to find $msg.get keys so I can change reuse them, find out how they are intended to be used, maybe even change them. Lots of parameters used in that tool are very difficult to find. How to know where to find even more? The API docs don't seem to cover this. Again, XWiki is a great product and I'm looking forward to using it even if I don't figure out the dashboard :). If some kind soul wanted to detail some explanations of the dashboard, and maybe create a HOWTO list of beginner tips that would be greatly appreciated by many I'm sure. Maybe such a thing exists and I just haven't found it yet? Many thanks, -Chris. -- View this message in context: http://xwiki.475771.n2.nabble.com/Need-some-Help-Explanations-tp7358161p737… Sent from the XWiki- Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ users mailing list users(a)xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users