Let's write a manual ! [help wanted]

Doc requests, organization, and submissions

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Minch Ruwin
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Post by Minch Ruwin »

Hey there,

I'd be interested in helping out too. While I have no programming experience, I have created lots of technical documents and my grammar is more betterer than most. :wink:

I'm probably better at editing than writing. Let me know how I can help.

Thanks!

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Orchard
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Post by Orchard »

Thank you for the interest.

At the moment, I am currently waiting for some of the dust to settle before diving in too much deeper with this project. It is a LARGE undertaking, and will require a lot of effort, but I am still planning on this. It's a diffifult thing to plan to write the documentation.

One of the biggest things is that 1.3 is a massively moving online really progressive goal....or something like that. I think that acronym may be taken my SOMETHING ELSE, though. oh well...

There will be a wiki set up, and it will be hosted somewhere...that's about all I know for now. I'll post another status update soon.

Thanks all for the interest...and I'll get out more information soon.
0+0=1, for very unstable CPUs.

Craig
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Post by Craig »

Orchard wrote:Thank you for the interest.

At the moment, I am currently waiting for some of the dust to settle before diving in too much deeper with this project. It is a LARGE undertaking, and will require a lot of effort, but I am still planning on this. It's a diffifult thing to plan to write the documentation.

One of the biggest things is that 1.3 is a massively moving online really progressive goal....or something like that. I think that acronym may be taken my SOMETHING ELSE, though. oh well...

There will be a wiki set up, and it will be hosted somewhere...that's about all I know for now. I'll post another status update soon.

Thanks all for the interest...and I'll get out more information soon.
I have set up a MediaWiki which I am about to start entering all the documentation I have for macros as not all the people I play with use vim -- I know shame on them! :) This wiki is available for the documentation project. If you prefer another wiki let me know and I can see about installing that instead.

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PillBox
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Post by PillBox »

Hmmm, I missed this post! DOH!

I started something myself using google docs. How far have you guys got so far?

I made this post earlier today : http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?t=6129
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Orchard
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Post by Orchard »

PillBox wrote:Hmmm, I missed this post! DOH!

I started something myself using google docs. How far have you guys got so far?

I made this post earlier today : http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?t=6129
Massive work there. I'm impressed.
0+0=1, for very unstable CPUs.

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PillBox
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Post by PillBox »

Orchard wrote:
PillBox wrote:Hmmm, I missed this post! DOH!

I started something myself using google docs. How far have you guys got so far?

I made this post earlier today : http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?t=6129
Massive work there. I'm impressed.
I'd like to stress that I only compiled the documentation from various sources. I did not actually write that all out. All I did was format the info so that I could place a table of contents with the click of a button.

Whats good about google docs is that the same document can be worked on by various people (the document is actually used online). It also exports to various formats (HTML, DOC, PDF, etc).

Since I do not know much about the macros functions, its just a copy/paste affair for myself.
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Orchard
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Post by Orchard »

PillBox wrote:
Orchard wrote:
PillBox wrote:Hmmm, I missed this post! DOH!

I started something myself using google docs. How far have you guys got so far?

I made this post earlier today : http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?t=6129
Massive work there. I'm impressed.
I'd like to stress that I only compiled the documentation from various sources. I did not actually write that all out. All I did was format the info so that I could place a table of contents with the click of a button.

Whats good about google docs is that the same document can be worked on by various people (the document is actually used online). It also exports to various formats (HTML, DOC, PDF, etc).

Since I do not know much about the macros functions, its just a copy/paste affair for myself.
Good work, none the less.
0+0=1, for very unstable CPUs.

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PillBox
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Post by PillBox »

I do not know how far you guys have got with the documentation. If you do not have anyone who 'Puts it together', I could volunteer for that part.

I'd use the google docs as it is now, and enter the relevant information sent to me. As it is not a complete documentation, it would probably have to be split into two parts - the complete part, and the in progress part.

Either way I am going to do this for myself, so why not do it as part of a team?
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Silentstar
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Post by Silentstar »

What about a section of examples (for macros, tokens, map making, etc) I know the video tutorials on making maps was really eye opening for me, and I know a lot of people hunt around the forums for macros that do specific things, written by other people. If you could compile a lot of those examples together along with some detailed explanation of how they are made (linking to relevant sections of the wiki/manual for function calls, or whatever) that would be really great. It would be good for showing what the program can do, as opposed to how it works. Sort of an "inspiration" section. Maybe this has been suggested, I don't know.

Also, i'm really new here, but would like to help with the documentation (as i've been looking for days through these forums just trying to figure things out). About the only thing i can offer though right now is a beginner's perspective. Sort of pointing out what may be unclear to someone who isn't familiar with the MapTool quite yet

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Post by biodude »

I unfortunately don't have a lot of time to help out, but I applaud a concerted, organized attempt to document the hyper-active MapTools development.

One of the most frustrating aspects of documentation right now, is that even the list of features for various builds is often inaccurate / incomplete. There are features documented that haven't even been implemented! It would be tremendously useful to have a list in each feature of which versions & builds actually support said feature, and I realize this isn't necessarily linear (some features work differently in different builds, or stopped working intermittently in successive builds before coming back). I can imagine it's not easy, but it is invaluable for users.

If this project were to use a wiki, would it make it easier for people to help out / contribute in small amounts, when they have time, etc.? I can't commit to help writing significant portions, but I'd be willing to edit for clarity.

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Orchard
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Post by Orchard »

biodude wrote:I unfortunately don't have a lot of time to help out, but I applaud a concerted, organized attempt to document the hyper-active MapTools development.

One of the most frustrating aspects of documentation right now, is that even the list of features for various builds is often inaccurate / incomplete. There are features documented that haven't even been implemented! It would be tremendously useful to have a list in each feature of which versions & builds actually support said feature, and I realize this isn't necessarily linear (some features work differently in different builds, or stopped working intermittently in successive builds before coming back). I can imagine it's not easy, but it is invaluable for users.

If this project were to use a wiki, would it make it easier for people to help out / contribute in small amounts, when they have time, etc.? I can't commit to help writing significant portions, but I'd be willing to edit for clarity.
That's my feeling--and why I'm shying away from solutions such as google docs or other things. I like google docs for what it does well...but LARGE collaborative projects aren't in that realm unfortunately.
0+0=1, for very unstable CPUs.

Craig
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Post by Craig »

Well I have a cra er bucket load of documentation on the macro stuff, what with the doco for b48 and other patches I have sent to Trevor and the documentation in the vim plugin and it made no sense have it in different places where people had to search this, then that then this, so I decided to start putting it all into a wiki, I am no where near done yet (oh so much doco) but you can look at what is there so far, I have been concentrating on macro functions so far.

http://lmwcs.com/maptool/index.php?title=Main_Page

I have even created a syntax highlighter for maptool macros for the syntax highlighter plugin (kinda sad really I guess).

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Rumble
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Post by Rumble »

Craig wrote:I have even created a syntax highlighter for maptool macros for the syntax highlighter plugin (kinda sad really I guess).

Sad....or sad like a fox? *

Don't feel bad. I created a MapTool syntax highlighter for my favorite text editor.











* I have no idea what that even means.

Craig
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Post by Craig »

Rumble wrote:
Don't feel bad. I created a MapTool syntax highlighter for my favorite text editor..
I created one for Vim as well so I am +2 on the sadness scale ;)

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Post by RPTroll »

But the rest of use glory in your sadness. ROCK ON!

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