[wiki] TextBook Wants You !

davidm · 2005-05-15 12:10:35

Yeah you can mail Destry, Remillard or even me, since I am now an admin@TextBook :)

bizartist · 2005-05-15 18:52:00

[Cheesy Testimonial Alert] I must say, there is something really satisfying about contributing to TextBook. I am hardly what you could call a TextPattern expert (I’m just about to wrap up my first site powered by TXP), so I posted my instructions for downloading the current revision with Transmit for people who didn’t want to mess around with SVN. So, for those of you in the same boat as me, I would like to point out that there is plenty of very base level info that still needs to be contributed. The experts tend to go for the more advanced topics, leaving plenty of simple ones needing to be fleshed out that would really help new users overcome the initial hurdles when starting with TXP. [/Cheesy Testimonial Alert]

Ok, back to my cave now ;p

kennethlove666 · 2005-05-15 20:44:49

/me needs to see about helping out…

Jaro · 2005-05-16 06:28:24

I registered about 2 months ago but didn’t get to write anything yet. Shame. I’ll try harder.

davidm · 2005-05-16 08:37:29

Thanks guys,

Quite true what you say, bizartist : everyone can contribute, even in a small way on basic topics. It’s the cumulative effort of all textpatterners that will make TextBook progress !

slabanosa · 2005-05-16 15:10:29

Hi David,

not sure I’m the right person for explaining anything clearly (je suis meme sur du contraire :) but if you need me for translating anything to French drop me a line, I’ll be happy to help

davidm · 2005-05-16 15:25:53

Well, a lot of people seem to be concerned about the skill requirement to write a documentation. I understand, but then again anyone who struggled and managed to grasp anything regarding textpattern is more knowledgeable than they know… it’s just a matter of putting it in a simple and clear manner, but we’re several working on this thing, writings are going to be edited by multiple editors so to speak. And there are still some basic things to write there…

I you have some time here and there, help about the french translation process would be nice… for more info about the french translation, read Textpattern in French is a Go

Mail me your email address and I create an account for you @TextBook :-)
Thx !

Last edited by davidm (2005-05-16 15:29:34)

Remillard · 2005-05-16 17:07:55

Just to emphasize a few points:

1. I’m sort of in absentia to some degree since January and haven’t had much time to contribute to it, so all applause definitely goes to Destry and crew.
2. Don’t worry so much about “skill”. The majority of the work is just banging the keyboard and getting SOMETHING into the wiki. As noted, it can and will be edited after the fact. However even if you cannot write skillful prose about the beauty of Textpattern, if you can do some of the grunt work, it makes it easier on the editors to craft it into the skillful prose.
3. Even if you can just go in and describe a single screen, or fill out one glossary entry, or anything like that, it’s helpful.

and apparantly Textile is not working… it just swallowed the numbered list marks without providing the numbered list.

Last edited by Remillard (2005-05-16 17:09:24)

marios · 2005-05-16 20:47:14

It would be really nice to have some “real life“examples for txp tags and forms from with in textpattern,which could in turn make it possible to lessen the learning curve,however I don’t know how much that could be possible before release candidate would be seen.
I’ve logged in several times but I feel that I’m not ready yet, since I haven’t tried out most of the stuff yet (together with major plugins).
Allso the conditional tags and custom article tags need some more “insight” from expert point of view,and I don’t want to pollute textbook with something that I’m still trying to figure out for myself.(But I’m getting closer soon)

regards, marios

davidm · 2005-05-16 21:43:26

Thanks Remillard, you sum it up quite well, the thing is to move forward and as you say do some grunt work… and you’re right, Destry deserves a hats off for the huge work he’s been doing the past few months on this project. I am more focused on the french translation since I am heading this effort, but as I said I’ll try and chip in a contribution on the writing as well.

Marios, you’re right writing on the more elaborate features is not that easy since you have to try and be precise to avoid induce erroneous understanding. Yet, one way to go about this might be to first outline a section by defining title, then rough summaries, then detailed content.

I see it more like a layered work (from the global to the detail) than a stack of detailed content (first, writing title 1 of section A, then title 2, etc…). If this makes it any clearer for would-be contributors, it would be of great help to help just outline things which makes it easier to go forward.

Some people are great at structuring and synthesizing, some are more at ease at writing detailed stuff but need some context to write stuff. I think everyone should chip in a contrib according to their own skills…

Last edited by davidm (2005-05-16 21:44:52)

Destry · 2005-05-17 19:14:10

Wow, thanks for the kind words…just trying to keep things on track is all, however slow.

For proper reference to (and details about getting) new user accounts, please see the User Accounts page, which has new information about who to contact under certain situations. (Mary, maybe you can edit your post to change your link to the one above, rather than to my personal contact?)

For all you relatively new to Textpattern, I think its OK to consider yourselves users of TextBook at this point as opposed to contributors to it (but of course contributors too if you want), that’s the whole point of it being there. What you might actually contribute at this point (as new users of TxP) is feedback about what you think is missing in TextBook…what is the information you need to know but cannot yet find (or understand)? This would help bring to focus the kinds of content others should work on creating, the documentation that should have priority. If I added a “What do you need?” page to TextBook, would that help?

As far as writing goes, in my mind there are a lot of “old-timers” in this community who have created many sites with Textpattern and who have very good knowledge of its nuances. These are the ones I would expect at least a paragraph or two from at this point. Especially for the sections slated for creation in Chapter 4: Common Web Site Setups with Textpattern, a critical chapter indeed.

I’ve even heard great suggestions from oldsters, such as actually building and packaging up the various TxP projects proposed for documentation in Chapter 4 which can be downloaded and taken apart for hands-on learning. This is a great idea, but where’s the beef..er…uh…backing?

Last edited by Destry (2005-05-17 19:24:48)

marios · 2005-05-17 20:17:13

One solution to this dilemma could be to open a thread in the forum (In the way it’s done with the central plug in list ) and call for submission from authors who allready have published some relevant articles on threir own sites.
These could be gathered there together with author, name, URL rss feed and so on.
Wilshire’s new article about comment integration is just one good example for such an article.
(I wasn’t thinking about the way it’s done in Textpattern resources)
The way how these could be included later on in TEXTBOOK is a different question.
Would like to hear what you think about that,Destry,Davidm,Remillard.

regards, marios

Last edited by marios (2005-05-17 20:18:34)

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#13 2005-05-15 12:10:35

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#14 2005-05-15 18:52:00

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#15 2005-05-15 20:44:49

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#16 2005-05-16 06:28:24

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#17 2005-05-16 08:37:29

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#18 2005-05-16 15:10:29

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#19 2005-05-16 15:25:53

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#20 2005-05-16 17:07:55

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#21 2005-05-16 20:47:14

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#22 2005-05-16 21:43:26

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#23 2005-05-17 19:14:10

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

#24 2005-05-17 20:17:13

Re: [wiki] TextBook Wants You !

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