Icy Phoenix

Hi guys,
we (the Staff) are trying to improve Documentation section.

At the moment I have just started in renaming some topics by adding a proper TAG prefix.

I would like to have all topics classified just to help users in quickly finding what they need.

At the moment the Docs Section looks like this:

Documentation

What are we doing:

• Moving outdated docs into Old Docs
  
• Adding proper TAGS and topic title
  
• Check what is missed and / or incomplete

If you have suggestions, please do... but remember... I won't use Knowledge Base (forum is more flexible, and better indexed...).

I should have "rebranded" all topics in there... have a look!

Icy Phoenix Documentation

Someone has been Very Busy!

If the "New" section takes one to the old posts and solutions etc, What I would do - And here it comes is:

1. Make the title relevant to the question.
2. Make the first post relevant to the title and add some keywords for better searching.
3. Post the solution to the question in the first post.
4. Create a "Hidden" thread such as "Trash" but more appropriately named.
5. Move all of the other posts from the thread that only take up space to the "New Hidden Thread".
6. Expect that from those who contributed to the solution need to appreciate that all docs are being re-vamped for their benefit also.

Even the ones they didn't contribute to.

I like the new page just my opinion but yes anything not related to the doc posted could be moved to the hidden forum as Lopalong suggested...

Great idea.. makes searching for an answer a lot easy .. even for me...

The problem there is any posts made after a DOC could be important or could include information on how to further that DOC or build onto it. A lot of work would go into moving everything into one post and in fact may prove unnecessary.

People can get lost in long, drawn-out posts and may not see the solution to their issue in a novelized post. Perhaps including links to the actual post in the topic that had various solutions could be included in the first post?

I suppose there are pro's and con's in both sides, but splitting a topic to move all posts besides the first should be last resort.

I like the new page

Chaotic wrote: [View Post]

I suppose there are pro's and con's in both sides, but splitting a topic to move all posts besides the first should be last resort.

Doc moved to: CUSTOMIZATION.

All it needs is someone willing to sift through the information in the current "Docs" and do (over time) the same thing to the other ones.

But I see little sense in having two threads covering the same topic.

If you want to create a new topic for that, please go ahead. We'll move it to the DOC forum for you.

You know you write great DOC's and How-To's and this will just be another one of those.

Well! I think you and I agree on one thing, and that is: The documentation should assume that the end reader knows "Nothing" about Icy Phoenix. And that's why imho - most of the current docs are too cryptic to be of much help to anyone, let alone the novice.

I moved your new DOC to the Documentation And How To forum.

I remember us talking about DOC'S a while back and we agreed you should create every DOC with a novice mindset. Dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's.

Great work!

Lopalong wrote: [View Post]

The documentation should assume that the end reader knows "Nothing" about Icy Phoenix.

I quote this.

Lopalong wrote: [View Post]

And that's why imho - most of the current docs are too cryptic to be of much help to anyone, let alone the novice.

The reason is simple... almost nobody in the past took care of docs section. Most of the contributions have been moved there after a problem solving in support forum...

As you know, I don't have the time and I can't speak perfect English either... I really need some good English speakers like you helping me in creating good docs.

Sometimes it's just a matter of wrapping up support topics, and I totally agree with you Lopalong, but we have to keep in mind that we are volunteers, and sometimes we don't have the time to create a good doc starting from a support topic... so that is the reason why I have moved so many support topics in the Docs section.

I have just chosen having something instead that nothing there... I hope you understand and agree on that.

Thanks for your contributions and feedbacks... you know... I appreciate.

Mighty Gorgon wrote: [View Post]

As you know, I don't have the time and I can't speak perfect English either... I really need some good English speakers like you helping me in creating good docs.

I'm a sucker for this!

I've already started going through the "Old" docs I did and am slowly cleaning them up for IPv1.3*

I'm also adding v1.3 at the end of the title. It's not really necessary I would imagine, but at the moment it "Tags" what I've done and what I haven't; so I would appreciate it if that's left on the end of the title in the short term.

Then, I'm going to start having a look at few other things that could be "cleaned" up.

I have removed v1.3 from a couple of your docs... because I think that there is no need for that since it is the latest stable release.

But I'll leave that for now.

You should be able to edit your own posts there, isn't it? In case you need that prefix you can re-add that temporarily.

I agree that the ver is not needed - but it was better than me adding "Finished this one" to the title!

I'll remove the ver when I finish editing all of my own files (and that won't be too long) - because that makes it easier for me to keep track of what I've done.

You also now have some 1.27* stuff in there!

Yes, there is some old stuff which should still work but with some tweaks.

We will sort out everything...

Finished! And removed the versions from the titles.

The two left with v1.27* etc, the "create a new page" has been split to v1.3* and the "moving the header" one imho is so outdated that tweaking it would require a whole new explanation.

My next project (For today) is to create a normally closed nav_quick_links.tpl

Hi, I want to know if I have ur auth for use documentations in ip.fr (I'll translated when u give me auth) ?

@ MG > What are exactly difference forum/knowledge base ? And if Forum is more flexible, why KB is installed on IP ?

Informpro wrote: [View Post]

Hi, I want to know if I have ur auth for use documentations in ip.fr (I'll translated when u give me auth) ?

Why do you need authority? Just quote your source as Icy Phoenix.com.

In other words. At the beginning of your Docs, just add Sourced from icyphoenix.com. In French preferably.

Ok, thanks

Informpro wrote: [View Post]

Hi, I want to know if I have ur auth for use documentations in ip.fr (I'll translated when u give me auth) ?

All documents here are open source... you can reproduce them... backlink is courtesy.

Informpro wrote: [View Post]

@ MG > What are exactly difference forum/knowledge base ? And if Forum is more flexible, why KB is installed on IP ?

Forum is more flexible and highly optimized. You can do almost everything if you know how to play with permissions and configuration.

Personally I don't like KB, I never liked it. My wish about removing KB was also one of the reason for Icy Phoenix to start up... I never used it and it is disabled here, it is still in the package because I have fixed hundreds of bugs in it and some users still use it. It is almost stand alone and I have removed almost all shared code where not needed... so KB could live in Icy Phoenix without damaging it.

Y'know something MG,

I've been looking at the 'new' classifications for the Docs Section and imho it's still going to get confusing.

We already have a great index system, namely at what page we're at and what we would like to change or add etc.

For example:

If I wanted to find something that may already exist for index.php I would be able to look under INDEX.PHP - for anything that applies to that page, and if it ain't there then I would assume that it's not available, or vice-versa.

Like right now - I'm at posting.php and I would "like" to make some changes etc. If someone has already made those changes then it would be a lot easier to look under POSTING.PHP for all information on this page. ?

I just don't think that a whole lot of CUSTOMIZATION'S is any better than what we had before because like the [DOC] prefix - it never really indexed anything.

And if I was to use the "expanded" docs menu, then I would expect that what I'm looking for would be under "P".

Just a thought - and of course the .PHP could be dropped anyway.

I'm working on a new categorization system.

I have written most of the code, but I need to re-check everything and make sure it is working as expected.

That will be a new concept on how Icy Phoenix indexes topics... it's really similar to common known tags system, but I hope to get it few step forward.

You will see that in Docs Section as soon as is ready.

Mighty Gorgon wrote: [View Post]

I'm working on a new categorization system.

I have written most of the code, but I need to re-check everything and make sure it is working as expected.

That will be a new concept on how Icy Phoenix indexes topics... it's really similar to common known tags system, but I hope to get it few step forward.

You will see that in Docs Section as soon as is ready.

cool cannot wait... look forward to seeing the end result

And the last thing to do will probably be to write a DOC on how to use the index. Because even I don't believe how people out there in fantasy land, have no idea on how to use one.