ZF Manual major change
Gavin Vess from Zend Studio’s proposed a major change for the Zend Framework’s manual. Currently, the manual is build using docbook. This can be a serious hassle for those willing to contribute to the manual (Subversion, docbook, compiling, etc …) The proposed change is to move from docbook to wiki.
I will be working on the automatic translation of docbook to HTML, docbook to Wiki, and Wiki to docbook, which is currently in progress. I hope that I will be able to finish the docbook to wiki script by next weekend, so we can do an initial test import for the English manual.
The English manual will be used for testing, and if everything works out well, a full conversion for each language will follow.
Why switch to wiki?
- Make smaller edits easier, and possible by at least everyone on the documentation / translation teams, possibly including all CLA signers.
- Reduce the learning curve and effort required to make edits to the manual and translations.
- Allow anyone to comment on each section, but with comment moderation, so that the manual can evolve more quickly and with more flexibility than the current process.
- Need notification system for edits (e.g. the wiki “watch”/notifications feature)
What are future plans for the manual?
- Improving syntax highlighting.
- Quick access: type http://framework.zend.com/zend_controller similar to php.net, where you can easily access a specific function by appending it to the url.
- Automatically generate HTML and PDF for each language, either directly from the wiki, or from docbook, after auto-generating docbook from the wiki.
More suggestions are welcome!
*update*
A first draft can be seen here.
