[Gambas-devel] Well, I kept my promise

[Benoît Minisini]

> This what I think the Gambas documentation ought to look like;
> everything the programmer needs in one place, not spread out all over
> the planet.
> 
> Create a directory and extract the attached files then just launch
>  index.html.
> 
> There are some issues to be resolved before I start work on this:
> 
> 1) The Gambas prawn/shrimp looks really immature. I recommend a new
> and more technical logo, such as, erm, anything other than a prawn or
> shrimp.

Mmm... Something like a foot print, a green dragon, or worse a penguin? :-)

> 
> 2) Fonts, style, layout, colours and what goes in the navigation panel
> on the left needs to be decided on.
> 
> 3) The wiki is arcane and ugly so I intend to rewrite the help text
> for the Gambas help browser, not for the wiki. Someone else can take
> on that burden.
> 
> Notes:
> 
> The Download link for the example works. All other links go back to
> index.html. I intend to include as many working examples as I can.
> The colour for the table headings came from a random pixel on the
> prawn. It isn't too bad but I think there is too much white.
> The text under comments is Lorem Ipsum gibberish pseudo-Latin. It
> isn't meant to make sense so please don't ask.
> 
> Ok, I know some of you love the prawn, but really, ask yourself, does
> it look mature? Does it say, "HEY! I represent a mature, technical
> product!"?
> 
> If you said yes to either question, get your head read :)
> 
> Comments, feedback and rude suggestions welcome.
> 
> PS: I'm serious about the wiki. I won't touch it.
> 

I think you don't understand the need of the wiki: I made it to allow people 
from everywhere to *enter* the information.

Then, I don't find that my last wiki style sheet is ugly. I find it pretty 
nice. It is almost copied on the old wikipedia style sheet. Well, it is mainly 
a matter of taste.

If you need sort of a menu on the left page, I think it could be easily added 
to the wiki. Like in wikipedia.

I don't think that *.tar.gz files can be put in the wiki, but it should be a 
feature easy to add too.

But if I don't find the wiki ugly, I admit it is a bit arcane. 

The main reason is: the information is usually entered in one place only, and 
follow the component structure (component->class->symbol). 

This way, a contextual help can be easily implemented in the IDE. But for 
beginners, I admit that it is difficult to find the information needed to do a 
specific task.

The solution there is writing the same information, but with a better 
organization. But it couldn't be done before that information was written 
first, and I have never had the time to do that myself.

And finally if you need an offline documentation, we can imagine a periodic 
process of dumping the wiki inside a directory, as I did before for Gambas 2.

In short, I don't see in your example anything that cannot be done inside the 
wiki with a few modifications.

But I may be wrong.

Regards,

-- 
Benoît Minisini