Torsten Anders wrote:
Dear Mark,
On 17.02.2010, at 12:00, mark richardson wrote:
Are comments visible at all without this toolbar?
As I said, apparently there is a 'bookmarklet' available which is a
bookmark you add to your favourites.
I see. The bookmarklet worked for me, but it shows that you always
have to first install something before being able to read comments.
That's because it is basically an 'overlay' over the top of the existing
site. Obviously it wouldn't make any difference to people who didn't
want to install anything - they would just be left with the basic
documentation.
Nevertheless, I also understand from the example comment you provided
that these comments should not always be added directly to the Mozart
documentation (besides, re-building the documentation is very
involved; perhaps at one stage we should even consider porting it to
another format, but that would be a lot of work too).
Even if work was done to add comments to the main documentation I feel
that the result might be even more difficult to navigate than the
original. At least this way the 'extra' documentation is optional.
My only concern regarding the format is that it should be a format
that is readable for years. Does this sidewiki facility means that the
data you enter is stored only be Google? What happens is the somehow
change their policy or this product?
I appreciate your concern about this. I presume (without expert
knowledge) that the data is held in some central Google database and a
lookup is made for each URL you visit. I also wondered how the current
migration of the site might be affected, but again I presume that
provided the URL is still mozart-oz.org the actual physical location of
the site would not have any effect. It might be wise to make sure this
is the case before too much is added.
As far as changes in policy/product are concerned I can only make
guesses. I realise this is just another attempt to make the earth
'planet-google' and that this feature could change. Indeed Google could
decide to make Googlemail a paid for service, but I doubt it. In any
event, if the facility is there now and is useful, is it not wise to
make use of it? If Google decide to stop the service in five years we
will be no worse off than we are now (if you disregard the effort
involved) but using the service would certainly make life easier.
If we want to add comments to the documentation that are not directly
part of the documentation itself, then perhaps Google's sidewiki is a
good option. Do you know whether there are any alternative services
that provide similar functionality?
I'm happy to go on a search for something similar but I imagine anyone
providing such a service would have to have the same resources as Google
- perhaps Microsoft :+).
I would guess that alternative options (if any) would be machine
specific - you would have a private cache not visible to other users,
which sort of defeats the object of the exercise.
If you added helpful comments, then it would be a shame if that is
lost. Of course, the plain doc would still be there :)
I've just tried to mirror the documentation using httrack in the hope
that the sidewiki entries might be cached - they were not.
There is an API available for sidewiki but I'm no expert with Google
API's or with the java examples that they provide.
Perhaps someone would know if this could be helpful? Would it be
possible to implement a local sidewiki? Or keep a cache of posted entries?
One thing I have just discovered is that entries can be automatically
posted on a blog (you guessed it, a google blog) and there is a facility
there to export your blog in xml format. That would take care of having
a method of archiving entries but the issue I see here is that even if a
local copy is kept of published entries, how would you re-integrate them
with the documentation site if the need arose?
In any event, I'm happy to use the service as it stands. I tend to keep
copies of anything I find useful in a folder for reference so I'm not in
danger of losing anything, but using this service would be a better
method for retrieval than my pathetic attempts at indexing my printouts.
Regards
Mark
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