Steven Noels wrote:
On 12 May 2005, at 17:21, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote:
But it's also true that editing xml files in a svn repository sucks as an editing tool. Using wiki (or daisy or other solutions) is much better.
I like the notion of
daisy -> forrest -> out
makes very good sense.
It does, yet there's obvious huge bits of overlap between Forrest and Daisy's publishing mechanism. IMO, Daisy is perfectly able to host Cocoon's documentation, both for editing and publishing.
<snip/>
What do people think?
IMO the problem is more political or sentimental than technical.
Although Daisy seems to fulfill a need that has no satisfying answer today to write and manage content, we're quite happy with the Forrest-based publication process. So why would we want to trash what works and is using an Apache project in favor of another tool?
For me, Daisy provides a superb editing environment that lowers the
barrier to entry for doc writers significantly. It also has enough
workflow and version management in it to manage the doc authoring
process. Finally, it is Cocoon based and Apache Licensed so can be
enhanced by Cocoon devs if required. I believe the separation of repository from editing environement is key to this flexibility (and where daisy wins hands down over the current alternative Cocoon CMS, Lenya)
What Daisy (nor Lenya) does not do is integrate content from multiple sources. This is important because the reality of Cocoon (and incidentally all businesses/projects) is that they have docs all over the place in many different formats (PDF, word, OOo, Xdoc, HTMl, mail, wiki etc.) and repositories (mailarchives, svn, network file systems, http servers etc.). If we want the lowest barrier to entry for doc writers then we have to allow them to submit docs in any format and via whatever means is most comfotable to them.
In other words, I am not talking about a tool for *writing* docs, I'm taling about a tool for collating quality docs into an official documentation colelction.
With respect to tools for *writing* docs I agree with Nicola, we need doc writers not tools. That being siad, I would advocate Daisy as the "official" tool of the Cocoon project (to replace the existing wiki).
I advocate Daisy because is Cocoon based, therefore it sends the right message and is cuastomisable by Cocoon committers. However, it is worth noting that Thorsten (a Forrest and Lenya committer) is hoping to build a Lenya plugin for Forrest. So everything I say in these threads regarding Forrest + Daisy, could also be said of Forrest + Lenya once he has that plugin working.
Ross
