History: About the Tiki Documentation

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! About the Tiki Documentation
Since the Tiki project started in 2002 there have been over 200 different developers working on [http://tikiwiki.org/All+Releases|over 50 separate releases] (major & minor), creating hundreds of features, over 1000 preferences/settings, with over 1 million lines of code and 7500 wiki pages created in the tikiwiki.org domain. 

Needless to say, developing an authoritative documentation for this open source project is challenging.  From the beginning until version 1.6, the Tiki documentation was a one-man effort. The [http://de.tiki.org/tikidocs/|1.6 Documentation] complete with 350 fully illustrated pages with screenshots provided the basis for what exists at doc.tiki.org today. 

Since that version, the Tiki project has chosen to eat its own ((tw:dogfood)). Not unlike a baby learning to feed itself, the results have been a little messy. We now have more than 2300 wiki pages on [http://tikiwiki.org] with several pictures and miscellaneous useful content. But as it's wide open to collaboration, it's sometimes also unsorted (or sorted in too many various different ways), and with an unpredictable degree of updating.

Since the end of 2006, a new effort has been put from Tiki community to have another updated single file for printing (pdf) with all relevant __Tiki documentation for 1.9__ branch, relative to installation, configuration, features available and tuning process (see ((All the Documentation|Table of contents))). Some more pages relative to the ((Download using SVN or CVS|__new Tikiwiki 1.10.0__)) have been added already in [http://doc.tiki.org/Documentation|http://doc.tiki.org]. By the time of this writing, this pdf document contained more than 850 numbered and indexed pages, to ease your off-line reading of documentation either in paper or pdf format. Moreover, this allows you make easier and faster searches of information in such a broad amount of pages covering most aspects of Tiki. 

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-=::Current download links (document with 850+ pages)::=-

{CENTER()}|| %%% ::{img src="img/wiki_up/pdf.png" link="http://doc.tiki.org/files/Tiki19beta.pdf"}:: ::__pdf__:: | %%% [http://doc.tiki.org/files/Tiki19beta.pdf] (12+ Mb)
%%% ::{img src="img/wiki_up/ooo_writer.png" link="http://doc.tiki.org/files/Tiki19beta.odt"}:: ::__odt__:: | %%% [http://doc.tiki.org/files/Tiki19beta.odt] (15+ Mb) ||{CENTER}
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!!A method for creating current and well organized documentation
Despite the chaotic fertility tiki hackers demonstrate at tikiwiki.org, there is a real need for a real classic linear documentation for easy reference. Many tiki contributors asked for a direction where they can help, and the fact is that such collaborative documentation work requires a strong focal point so people can work in effective synchronicity. The Tiki documentation is a ((wp:collaborative writing)) project. 

!!!The documentation plan.
The secret to a well made wiki is having a logical structure so everybody can figure out the ((structure)) of the objects (pages) in the project and process by which they are developed.  

__Document Structure__
The document structure evolves organically. There is a ((All the Documentation|Table of Contents)), but lately, effort has been focused on developing a knowledge base from ((keywords)). As such, the table of contents does not necessarily link to every page in the documentation, but it links to all the major topics, which may have their own sub-pages. 

Anyone who has editing privileges in [http://doc.tiki.org] can and should edit the table of contents page with the intention of making it better.

__Documentation Procedure__

The rules about how to document are controlled by via two important pages: the ((Style Manual)) and the ((Editorial Board)). ((Documentation Status)) monitors requests for help etc. 

*The ((Style Manual)) contains the current rules/guidelines of how the pages should look when complete. 
*The Editorial Board decides on questions that need to be decided.
*((Documentation Status)) is a dashboard that monitors documentation status tags in use in the documentation.

*you can change the style manual.
*you can join the ((editorial board)).

The best example of a constructive change to the style manual is to create a specific rule that obeys a general rule that already exists. If you try to change an existing rule, expect some push-back, because you would be implying that all extant pages of the documentation should now be ((refactor))ed to comply. 
^__example:__ if the general rule is that an example should appear before the third paragraph, then you could amend the style manual to state that all examples should appear in a text box with "example:" in bold^ 


__Getting Support/Help__

See: ((get help)) 

__From here__:
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