D7 core docs sprint #1

[Addison Berry]

add1sun has posted a Event at http://groups.drupal.org/node/24913
D7 core docs sprint #1
---------------
As part of the effort to make the Drupal 7 release the best ever, we
are going to be doing core doc sprints during the month of August.
This sprint will be on Tuesday, August 4 from 7 - 9 pm EDT (find
your time) in the #drupal-docs IRC channel on the Freenode network.
We'll be focusing on the Core patches that need docs and Core issues
in documentation component. We will have at least two mentors on
hand to help answer questions and work through the issues with
folks, so if you are willing to learn a little, please stop by! If
you are familiar with Drupal patches and/or reading code, we'd
appreciate the help, even if only for 15-20 minutes or so.

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[Jennifer Hodgdon]

The first two scheduled sprints are at reasonable times for people in
the western hemisphere, but they are in the middle of the night in
Europe. So I just wanted to suggest maybe a different time for the
next sprint, more amenable to people who keep daylight-oriented hours
in Europe, perhaps? Maybe you already thought of this... Anyway, I'm
offering to potentially mentor a sprint that's more European-timed.

It looks like 7 PM in Paris is 10 AM here in Seattle, which would work
fine for me, most days, with a bit of advanced warning (self-employed,
flexible schedule).

Thoughts? Are there folks for whom this time frame would work better
than the midnight Paris / 4 pm Seattle schedule of the first two sprints?

Jennifer

[Marcello Testi]

Post by Jennifer Hodgdon
The first two scheduled sprints are at reasonable times for people
in the western hemisphere, but they are in the middle of the night
in Europe. So I just wanted to suggest maybe a different time for
the next sprint, more amenable to people who keep daylight-oriented
hours in Europe, perhaps? Maybe you already thought of this...
Anyway, I'm offering to potentially mentor a sprint that's more
European-timed.

I guess the best would be to have European mentors that manage the
sprint in Europe (or people like Jennifer who volunteer to take a day
on/off work from the US). Probably a late afternoon / early night
start for any sprint is the only way to go, whichever side of the
ocean you are on (I doubt that we can take full days of work off for
the sprints). Given time zones sequence, the sprints should begin in
Europe (I'm talking Euro-centric now; of course it could be extended
earlier for countries further East of Greenwich), when the US are
waking up and then pass over to the US in the middle of the (European)
night.

Ciao.
Marcello.


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[Jennifer Hodgdon]

Probably a late afternoon / early night start
for any sprint is the only way to go, whichever side of the ocean you
are on (I doubt that we can take full days of work off for the sprints).
Given time zones sequence, the sprints should begin in Europe (I'm
talking Euro-centric now; of course it could be extended earlier for
countries further East of Greenwich), when the US are waking up and then
pass over to the US in the middle of the (European) night.

The first two sprints are only 2 hours in length. I was assuming the
next ones would be similar, rather than trying for an all-day affair.

--Jennifer

[adept digital evolution]

add1sun has posted a Event at http://groups.drupal.org/node/24913
D7 core docs sprint #1
---------------
As part of the effort to make the Drupal 7 release the best ever, we
are going to be doing core doc sprints during the month of August.
This sprint will be on Tuesday, August 4 from 7 - 9 pm EDT (find your
time) in the #drupal-docs IRC channel on the Freenode network. We'll
be focusing on the Core patches that need docs and Core issues in
documentation component. We will have at least two mentors on hand to
help answer questions and work through the issues with folks, so if
you are willing to learn a little, please stop by! If you are
familiar with Drupal patches and/or reading code, we'd appreciate the
help, even if only for 15-20 minutes or so.

questions from a non-programmer who is involved in her first drupal project:

1. Could you please point me to some information on IRC and how to use it?

2. When you say "core doc" I presume that means programmer's
documentation and not end-users?

thanks

ilyse
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[b***@gmail.com]

Post by adept digital evolution
1. Could you please point me to some information on IRC and how to use it?

http://drupal.org/irc

regards,

boris
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[Jennifer Hodgdon]

Post by adept digital evolution
2. When you say "core doc" I presume that means programmer's
documentation and not end-users?

Yes, we are having "sprints" to get the developer-facing
documentation, which is mostly on api.drupal.org and mostly embedded
in core Drupal PHP files, fixed up.

Links in the announcement (http://groups.drupal.org/node/24913) will
take you to the issue queues for the issues we will be focusing on, if
you're interested.

However, if you would like to work on other documentation issues and
show up on the IRC channel, I'm sure no one will object. :)

Regards,
Jennifer

[adept digital evolution]

Post by Jennifer Hodgdon

Post by adept digital evolution
2. When you say "core doc" I presume that means programmer's
documentation and not end-users?

Yes, we are having "sprints" to get the developer-facing
documentation, which is mostly on api.drupal.org and mostly embedded
in core Drupal PHP files, fixed up.
Links in the announcement (http://groups.drupal.org/node/24913) will
take you to the issue queues for the issues we will be focusing on, if
you're interested.
However, if you would like to work on other documentation issues and
show up on the IRC channel, I'm sure no one will object. :)
Regards,
Jennifer

I think I have joined this project by mistake. I have little experience
with php, and zero experience programming with Drupal. Therefore
anything written for the developers would be beyond my capabilities to
help with. In my consulting & biz analyst career (and some lightweight
4GL "programming") I have had plenty of opportunity to write help docs
for end-users and in general have strong document-architecture and
writing skills ....

had mistaken this whole "Documentation" effort to mean improved docs
for users. From the standpoint of a Drupal _user_, even one who is quite
tech savvy, the docs need a lot of work and I was hoping to pitch in.

Is that part of this, or should I just politely go away? :-)

ilyse
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[adept digital evolution]

I had mistaken this whole "Documentation" effort to mean improved docs
for users. From the standpoint of a Drupal _user_, even one who is
quite tech savvy, the docs need a lot of work and I was hoping to
pitch in.
Is that part of this, or should I just politely go away? :-)

let me define what I mean by "user":

I do not mean someone who might author a blog piece posted to a menu
someone already set up for them in Drupal. I mean the average Joe or
Josephine who wants to create their own web site, and needs to install,
configure, and maintain Drupal core, themes and modules.

When you say this project is for "developer-facing" docs, I'm imagining
you mean the people who create the actual php code that makes Drupal
work?? (in which case i need to get outta here FAST!)

I'm sorry to have to be asking this question. I'm sure it's obvious to
the rest of you, there is sure to be an understanding on what
"developer" vs. "user" means in the Drupal subculture, but I have only
just joined it.

And if I am in the wrong place, please point me to the Group or Project
that might be dealing with making the website more usable and the
user-facing docs more complete and accurate. The web site itself is just
impossible to navigate, I'd love to help on the overall organization.

As an example of the Web site problems, I did not even know there is a
groups.drupal.org subdomain until I clicked on a doc project link and
was taken to that subdomain. Oh!! There are special Groups in this
community!! From the main site drupal.org there is no link to Groups.

Another big one is the impossibility of finding anything on the forums.
There is a single field. There is text that says "Try searching the
forums using the advanced search option first" but there is no link,
button or tab that says Advanced Search, not even after trying a simple
search in that one field. That text was written by someone who
understands what "advanced search" means to the long-timers, but forgot
that to someone like me visiting the forum as a newbie, if you refer to
a feature as "advanced search" either _link_ to that feature or if the
feature is right there on the page somewhere, _label_ it with that same
phrase: "advanced search".

where can i help on issues like these?

thanks!!!

ilyse
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[Addison Berry]

Hi ilyse,

Actually working on developer documentation is something new and
rarely done by our documentation team or discussed in this list. :-)
We have a ton of end user documentation work that needs to be done as
well. This is just one particular initiative we are working on at the
moment. The Docs team works on *all* documentation for Drupal and so
we have a number of projects running at the same time in different
areas. If you would rather work on end user docs, we currently need
help with the upgrade and installation guides. Here are the issues
where these are being discussed:
http://drupal.org/node/536854
http://drupal.org/node/538054

In particular we still really need someone to step up and start the
review/revision process for the Installation guide and find out if
there are improvements to be made and what changes are needed for
installing Drupal 7. Of course, you can also just dive in to begin
editing just about most anywhere in the handbooks.

I also want to point out that core docs is *not* just developer
documentation, but also the help text that is displayed throughout a
Drupal installation, so you don't have to be a developer to help with
core docs.

Welcome aboard, we'll be able to find plenty for you to work on. ;-)

- Addi

Post by adept digital evolution

Post by Jennifer Hodgdon

Post by adept digital evolution
2. When you say "core doc" I presume that means programmer's
documentation and not end-users?

Yes, we are having "sprints" to get the developer-facing
documentation, which is mostly on api.drupal.org and mostly
embedded in core Drupal PHP files, fixed up.
Links in the announcement (http://groups.drupal.org/node/24913)
will take you to the issue queues for the issues we will be
focusing on, if you're interested.
However, if you would like to work on other documentation issues
and show up on the IRC channel, I'm sure no one will object. :)
Regards,
Jennifer

I think I have joined this project by mistake. I have little
experience with php, and zero experience programming with Drupal.
Therefore anything written for the developers would be beyond my
capabilities to help with. In my consulting & biz analyst career
(and some lightweight 4GL "programming") I have had plenty of
opportunity to write help docs for end-users and in general have
strong document-architecture and writing skills ....
had mistaken this whole "Documentation" effort to mean improved docs
for users. From the standpoint of a Drupal _user_, even one who is
quite tech savvy, the docs need a lot of work and I was hoping to
pitch in.
Is that part of this, or should I just politely go away? :-)
ilyse
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[adept digital evolution]

Thanks Addi, i just signed up for both sprints! (now i just have to
learn All About IRC if I have time beforehand)

Further, I would LOVE to help on the install instructions for 7.

Downloading 7.x-dev now. It will take me a bit to ramp up since I don't
have a test site set up. But I should get to this by tomorrow.

ilyse

Post by Addison Berry
Hi ilyse,
Actually working on developer documentation is something new and
rarely done by our documentation team or discussed in this list. :-)
We have a ton of end user documentation work that needs to be done as
well. This is just one particular initiative we are working on at the
moment. The Docs team works on *all* documentation for Drupal and so
we have a number of projects running at the same time in different
areas. If you would rather work on end user docs, we currently need
help with the upgrade and installation guides. Here are the issues
http://drupal.org/node/536854
http://drupal.org/node/538054
In particular we still really need someone to step up and start the
review/revision process for the Installation guide and find out if
there are improvements to be made and what changes are needed for
installing Drupal 7. Of course, you can also just dive in to begin
editing just about most anywhere in the handbooks.
I also want to point out that core docs is *not* just developer
documentation, but also the help text that is displayed throughout a
Drupal installation, so you don't have to be a developer to help with
core docs.
Welcome aboard, we'll be able to find plenty for you to work on. ;-)
- Addi

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[Peter Dowling]

Ilyse (and anyone needing it). Here is a quick document showing step by
step how to set up Chatzilla which is an IRC client that works as a
Firefox add-on. That is probably the easiest way to start since it is
free and should work on any machine you have firefox on. It includes a
cheatsheet of basic commands to get you started at the end.

http://bit.ly/FN5ck

Much more information about using IRC to connect with the Drupal
community can be found here...

http://drupal.org/irc

The specific channel you'll need to connect to for documentation sprints
would be #drupal-docs so in the document I attached just substitute
#drupal-docs where it says which room you want to connect to.

Regards,

Peter (winstond on IRC)

Post by adept digital evolution
Thanks Addi, i just signed up for both sprints! (now i just have to
learn All About IRC if I have time beforehand)
Further, I would LOVE to help on the install instructions for 7.
Downloading 7.x-dev now. It will take me a bit to ramp up since I don't
have a test site set up. But I should get to this by tomorrow.
ilyse

Post by Addison Berry
Hi ilyse,
Actually working on developer documentation is something new and
rarely done by our documentation team or discussed in this list. :-)
We have a ton of end user documentation work that needs to be done as
well. This is just one particular initiative we are working on at the
moment. The Docs team works on *all* documentation for Drupal and so
we have a number of projects running at the same time in different
areas. If you would rather work on end user docs, we currently need
help with the upgrade and installation guides. Here are the issues
http://drupal.org/node/536854
http://drupal.org/node/538054
In particular we still really need someone to step up and start the
review/revision process for the Installation guide and find out if
there are improvements to be made and what changes are needed for
installing Drupal 7. Of course, you can also just dive in to begin
editing just about most anywhere in the handbooks.
I also want to point out that core docs is *not* just developer
documentation, but also the help text that is displayed throughout a
Drupal installation, so you don't have to be a developer to help with
core docs.
Welcome aboard, we'll be able to find plenty for you to work on. ;-)
- Addi

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[adept digital evolution]

Post by Peter Dowling
Ilyse (and anyone needing it). Here is a quick document showing step by
step how to set up Chatzilla which is an IRC client that works as a
Firefox add-on.

thanks Peter! i'm in!

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