[FM Discuss] generating online help

[politube]

hi Adam....

adam hyde wrote:
> hey Kuros,
>
> On Tue, 2008-03-11 at 21:16 +0100, politube wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>  
>>     I just joined the list... I recall seeing a floss manual 
>> presentation at the transmission.cc meet recently. 
>>     
>
> I think that might have been the presentation I did in Amsterdam?
>
>
>   
yes that's it! it was very nice
>> I would like to 
>> create online help for www.politube.org and some suggestions were that I 
>> talk to flossmanual about this. Ideally I want to have the following 
>> features:
>>
>>     * create context sensitive help (e.g. on a particular page of the
>>       site user clicks help and the help for that page opens in a pop-up).
>>     
>
> You could link directly to pages within FLOSS Manuals with a skin
> attribute like this:
> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/Audacity/DigitalAudio?skin=ajax
>
>   
i think this is exactly what I am looking for. Compose the help files on 
FM and recall them with my own skinning. that fits!!
> the above example is this page:
> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/Audacity/DigitalAudio
>
> with the ?skin=ajax on the end. We can out other skin references instead
> such as the one Tactical Technology Collective are using for their
> Citizens Journalism Toolkit:
> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/Audacity/DigitalAudio?skin=cjt
>
> If you can make a skin we can add it to our templating system.Then you
> can call pages remotely and they will ahve the look and feel of your
> site. Templates are extremely easy to make. You make an html page and
> put the following:
> %TEXT% 
> where the content from floss manuals should appear. You can have in the
> template any css elements that you like. Since FLOSS Manuals uses pure
> xhtml you can do a lot of nice things with CSS to make it fit your site.
>   
great! i will do this.
>   
>>     * the software for the help files is maintained on someone else's
>>       service. I don't want to maintain a CMS/Wiki just for this
>> purpose.
>>     
>
> we have a 'live manual' api that enables you to embed pages within your
> website/cms/blog by cutting and pasting 4 or 5 lines of html into your
> html. It is available via the remix function (see step 3 of the remix,
> and scroll down the page - http://www.flossmanuals.net/remix)
>   
perfect....
>
>   
>>     * the service should be minimally customizable to support the L&F
>> of
>>       the site.
>>     
>
> see above
>
>   
>>     * searching/indexing ought be supported
>>     
>
> this is not currently available with FM. It is possible for us to
> implement it if you can tell us more about what you would like. If it
> makes sense throughout the entire system we will implement it (although
> I cant promise we can do it over night)
>   
well, nothing really that difficult, just as any other app, when you are 
looking for help on a keyword, then you type it in the search box and 
you see a list of help link with that keyword
>   
>>     * As a last nice-to-have feature, users would be able to update the
>>       help files.
>>     
>
> currently anyone can edit a file in FM if they create an account. The
> creation of an account is necessary so that we can properly accredit
> modifications.
>
> On this point - you could out a link in the template to the editable
> version of the page, I can help you wiht this if this is the direction
> you would like to do. 
>   
well, this is partways so, but i want users that are signed in with 
politube to be able to do it directly, but i don' think you can support 
that (at least at this point). A kind of "client-capability" with 
single-sign-on I guess.
>   
>> Really, I think that this a job for a single CMS serving several 
>> websites, not only containing help, but perhaps about pages, terms of 
>> use etc. (which really classify as help, right?).
>>     
>
>
> how does the above fit with your needs?
>
>   
it is good enough, i like to sign up.

thanks alot

Kuros

P.S. the only other thing I like is to also include my About and Terms 
of use (which is not there right now) in the whole scheme. Essentially, 
all non-functional text. How would that fit in, do you think it would work?


> adam
>
>
>   
>> As a minimal solution, perhaps I could use floss manuals to compose the 
>> help, then click a button to generate/export HTML, which I tweak to 
>> support my L&F. Is this a possibility? I sure miss the searching 
>> capability on this though?
>>
>> thanks in advance for your suggestions
>>
>> Kuros
>>
>>
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>>