New page "Docs" on web site

[M Young]

Hi Ruslan,

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my feedback.

My comments are intermixed below.

I appreciate the effort being expended to improve the accessibility of  
the Valentina documentation.

Regards,

Michael

On Feb 23, 2008, at 12:28 AM, Ruslan Zasukhin wrote:

> On 22/2/08 11:13 PM, "M Young" <m.young at mac.com> wrote:
>
>> I like the look of the page.
>>
>> Valentina for Cocoa
>>      install register
>>      features tutorial examples
>>      manual deploy faqs tips
>>
>> Since clicking on one of these links gets page with "This topic does
>> not exist yet," I would like to ask will each word (install, etc.)
>> link to a separate page?
>
> Yes of course.
>
> I develop now the STRUCTURE of this page, and now it is more clean  
> missing
> pages for this or that product. After more or less polishing of this  
> page I
> am going spend time to setup all this WIKI pages to exists, and to  
> have nice
> text.

Makes sense.

>
> Next step will be add Getting Started for each product, with  
> description of
> architecture of e.g. V4RB plugin...

Sounds like a great plan.

>
> Also I will try check again what exists for DokuWiki to make kind of  
> Index
> or LeftSideBar in the Valentina WIKI.

Logical.

>
> I believe that problem is not with WIKI itself, but with fact that
> specifically in our Valentina wiki do not present plain index of
> pages/parts. This comes from nature of this DokuWiki. It is not DBMS- 
> based
> as most others wiki... And I have choose it in the past because it  
> is on top
> rating by popularity on freshmeat.com...
>
>
> --------------------
>> Typo:
>> Valentina Articles
>>      Tech Introduction
>>      Databse Models
>>        ^^^^^
>>      Database
>>
>> I understand the idea of a ROOT page for the docs, but will this page
>> seem overwhelming to folks new to Valentina?
>
> This is exactly for new users target...
>
> Well, note that also yesterday I have improve page "Documentation"
> E.g.
>    http://www.paradigmasoft.com/en/products/documentation/V4RB

The title "Download Documentation of Valentina for REALbasic"is  
currently misleading, because not all the information is  
"downloadable" as PDF, etc., although I saw from another email that  
situation may be changing.

>
>> Since many of the products have the same install, manual, faqs (is
>> faqs or faq the more common term these days?), would a table be more
>> efficient?
>>
>>                   Cocoa   Director RB   Rev   Etc. (alphabetized)
>> install
>> register
>> features
>> tutorial
>> examples
>> manual
>> etc.
>
> I afraid that
>
> 1) table can become not enough if we will need more columns.
>    in the current style we do not limited for this or that product
>
> 2) Table I have try made on this page:
>
> <http://www.valentina-db.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=paradigma:public:en:docume
> ntation:documentation>

The table looks fine to me. Should one be able to click on the  
"Valentina for Cocoa" etc. in the table to be taken to a page that has  
all that product's reference materials, so that someone using just one  
Valentina product does not have to keep coming back to a master page  
with so many product choices that they do not use?

> 3) question is what <word> write in the CELL, we need it to make link
> itself.

I can see that repeating install, manual, etc. multiple times in the  
table is a bit redundant, based on your table example. Maybe you could  
use "X" or some other symbol (maybe Valentina logo) if the page exists  
and empty or the international slash no symbol over the symbol, if the  
page does not exist?

>> Could cookies for this page keep track of what product(s) someone
>> searched/used, so those products are more prominent (ie top of page)?
>
> I think this is not right. May be I was on V4RB page and now I  
> really want
> jump to something else. Then how I will find ALL docs?

How many new users need to find ALL docs? I thought the problem with  
the current documentation access is new folks have problems figuring  
how to find things and are looking for downloadable beginner articles.  
If the List is any indication, folks do not seem to know where to look  
for what they need. How many new Valentina developers use multiple  
different Valentina products? You should have this information from  
your sales and other sources.

However, looking at the way you have laid out the ROOT page  
information the first 3 rows might be important to Valentina  
developers using all development tools. The last four rows are related  
to more specific development tools. Is someone new to Valentina more  
likely to be interested in their specific tool or the first 3 rows of  
material? I think it could be their specific tool. If so, this Cocoa,  
PHP, etc. information should be at the top of the ROOT page.

Have you considered adding tooltips, or even brief blurbs, on this  
ROOT page about why anyone should care about reading Valentina KERNEL,  
etc.? Are these reasons percolated throughout the beginner (e.g.  
tutorial, examples, et.c) type docs enough?

I would also have the headings for Valentina KERNEL, Valentina for  
Cocoa, etc. be clickable to a page that has all those headings'  
reference page links. For the Cocoa through Ruby pages, these  
reference pages could be bookmarked by folks using just that one tool.  
Maybe at the bottom of those one product pages, you could have the six  
Valentina KERNEL through VDN page links and a link to the ROOT docs  
page?

Valentina KERNEL                    Valentina Articles

Valentina Studio                         Valentina Office Server

Valentina Community Server   Valentina Embedded Server (VDN)

Valentina for Cocoa                   Valentina for C++

Valentina for Director                 Valentina for .NET

Valentina for REALbasic           Valentina for Revolution

Valentina for PHP                       Valentina for Ruby
>
> <clipped>