[FM Discuss] State of the english Flossmanuals

[joachim heintz]

i second what you say about github.  although many open source 
initiatives are on it (because it offers better services than 
sourceforge), it is in itself a proprietary platform.  but flossmanuals 
is not, as far as i know.  i trust in fm, although there have been some 
issues over the years.  but this is a community effort, and i would like 
to stick on it.

	joachim


Am 17.06.2015 um 23:56 schrieb andre:
> Sorry to barge in.
> I just been lurking for a a couple of months on the floss manuals list and have been a reader for some years(floss
> manuals helped me a lot to get into free software). I am grateful to the project and hope I can somehow contribute.
>
> The discussion concerning a more flexible system for writing-publishing-maintaining floss manuals got me interested, so
> I'll trow in my 2cents.
>
> At a point in the discussion GitHub was suggested as a possibility.
> Although it sounds tempting, as it was already referred, it can discourage less tech minded people from contributing.
> But then aren't most of those writing the manuals familiar with git and markdown?
> On-the-other-hand using GitHub, seems like a contradiction for a project focused on the dissemination of floss, as
> GitHub is not an open source initiative, but a proprietary service, based on Git.
>
> Mediawiki could be another interesting solution.
> I allow writing in both wiki syntax or with a WYSIWYG editor, and I believe there are a few plugins that allow the use
> of markdown.
> It lends itself to a number of editing and publishing workflow, and organizational structure.
> The markup can easily and cleanly converted to HTML (epub and Pdf, with so hacks needed for the last).
> And includes a very comprehensive web api.
>
>
> curious where the discussion will head.
> best
> a
>
>
> On 06/17/2015 10:47 PM, helen varley jamieson wrote:
>> i work on the UpStage manual, for which we have (occasionally) had
>> contributions from users of the platform who are not at all technical.
>> it has been really helpful to be able to involve these people in the
>> manual-writing process. in fact the previous FM interface was almost too
>> difficult for people to use. keeping it simple for users of software to
>> be able to contribute is really important, since users will write quite
>> different instructions to those who wrote the software.
>>
>> h : )
>>
>> On 17/06/15 9:51 28PM, Mick FM wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 17/06/15 19:57, Marvin Scholz wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I personally don't think it's good for FM as really we want to lower
>>>>> barriers to writing docs, so having to use git, or mark up doesn't
>>>>> really fit the bill.
>>>>
>>>> Hey, well to be honest I think the opposite is the case. Most people
>>>> writing technical
>>>> documentation would prefer a markup language like Markdown instead of
>>>> a WYSIWG editor.
>>>
>>> I hear what you are saying there, and I wouldn't dispute it, but let me
>>> clarify a bit, I meant that the goal is to make it as easy as possible
>>> for *anyone* to write docs without any other technical knowledge.
>>>
>>>> A lot of sites do a "best of both worlds" solution by having an editor
>>>> that has buttons for
>>>> most common formatting and inserts the correct Markdown.
>>>
>>> Sure, that would be ideal, definitely.
>>> And even more ideal if technically able writers could write via markdown
>>> and git and others who were less technical could write via a web interface.
>>>
>>> I think this has already been mentioned on this list but for Booktype
>>> 2.0 the Aloha editor is used.
>>> http://www.alohaeditor.org/
>>> This looks to be a huge improvement!
>>>
>>> nice one
>>> Mick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>