[FM Discuss] using Flossmanuals (was: request to start new manual for Mifos)

[Anne Gentle]

Hi Adam -
Great questions and requests!

On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 5:59 PM, Adam Monsen <haircut at gmail.com> wrote:

> > 1. links do not render well in print
> > 2. if a chapter is renamed or deleted you might make the link outdated
> > 3. if the manual is translated, links have to be "translated" too so that
> > they point to the correct language
>
> Good points.
>
> It would still be very useful for us to have cross-referencing. LaTeX,
> MS Word, and other systems provide a means for cross-referencing
> (including a way to print them), and the feature is quite useful in
> documentation.
>
> Can we request this as an enhancement? Part of the enhancement request
> would be that the link would change with the link target. The Mifos
> manual is likely to get very large.
>
>
Erm, there won't be enhancements on the TWiki-based FLOSS Manuals tool as
all development efforts are going into Booki development, a new
collaborative authoring tool. You can read more about it at
http://en.flossmanuals.net/booki. I don't see a specific section about
cross-references, but you'll generally get the same reasoning for avoiding
cross-referencing. You can see the alpha in progress at http://www.booki.cc/.
Cross-references used wisely can be a great enhancement to a publication.


> > When you want to publish a draft, send an email to the list and someone
> with
> > publish privileges will publish it. Typically this doesn't take long. We
> can
> > talk more about adding privileges to a maintainer person if you think
> that's
> > the right model for your group - see
> > http://en.flossmanuals.net/FLOSSManuals/Maintainers.
>
> Yes, we would like this. Would you mind making AnitaAnderson and
> AdamMonsen maintainers for the Mifos manual?
>

I can't do that but Adam Hyde or Cara Bell-Jones can, I believe. Sit tight
for another few days for Adam to return from vacation.

And, I went ahead and clicked Publish now. Here's the Introduction:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/Mifos/Welcome.


>
> 6. Is there a way to build a true index, cross-referencing locations
> in the text to specific words and phrases, like what you'd generally
> see at the end of a textbook? (and like what appears in the most
> awesome book "Conversation and Community: The Social Web for
> Documentation")?
>

Hee. My editor/indexer will be happy to know the index is appreciated! :)
There is no indexing capability in FLOSS Manuals's Twiki toolset. It's a
good question - I highly value indexes and would love to see the capability
built into Booki.


>
> 7. Is there a more convenient interface for the upload manager? Like,
> a bulk upload, or a WebDAV frontend?
>
>
Adam can do bulk uploads of graphics and the like... but it requires server
access as you might imagine and I don't think he can give that, but
typically you could email him a zip file with your files for upload and he
can do it.

Hope this helps!
Anne
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