Question

This is not a direct support question, but I would like to know if there are any existing plans or initiatives to update the existing documentation to TWiki-4.2 or even further for future TWiki versions.

The current documentation is mainly directed towards an "old" TWiki with a WYSIWYG-Editor as a non-default plugin and therefore the documentation is mainly focused on TWikiShorthand.

In TWiki-4.2 a lot has changed and especially for new users many things became a little easier or, let's better say, more user friendly when thinking about a normal text editor experience when editing or creating a topic. So getting involved into TWiki might be a little bit easier for newbies when talking about quickstarts, but the existing documentation not necessarily represents this. Obviously TWikiShorthand is still valid and IMO a very important feature for advanced users and administrators, so a lot of the documentation is still valid, but especially the introduction material should be updated.

I am willing to take care of it (to a certain degree and without having the intention to get into someone's way), but would like to have some feedback from the community before. And some guidelines as I am not sure if it is a good idea to start refactoring existing documentation topics in the TWiki web or split it off somewhere (e.g. separate web?).

Environment

-- SebastianKlus - 23 Jul 2008

Answer

If you answer a question - or someone answered one of your questions - please remember to edit the page and set the status to answered. The status selector is below the edit box.

Very nice idea. You are right, emphasizing the TWiki markup is confusing and frightening new users, as seen on MarkupContribPlugIn

I guess the best way should be for you to jump into it and change the WelcomeGuest, TWikiTutorial as you want, without waiting from agreements (Waiting for agreement has been the think that has killed refactoring efforts before). If needed, we can always put back the old ones, but renaming them as TWikiTmlModeTutorial or something like it.

I'd suggest using new users as CharleneBartlinski as guinea pigs to determine what docs they spontaneoulsy read first, and change these in priority...

-- ColasNahaboo - 26 Jul 2008

Thank you Sebastian for offering to help on the documentation. Please edit the topics in the TWiki web directly, this is the doc master on twiki.org. We will take care of synchronizing it with the docs in Subversion. Review also the TWikiDocsStyleGuide.

To get involved with the community, review ReadmeFirst and SoYouWantToBeATWikiDeveloper.

-- PeterThoeny - 27 Jul 2008