I'm happy to contribute as much as I can to docs; I've synched everything up with CVS and I'll start looking at them tonight. With your permission, one of things I'd like to start thinking about is a short introductory blurb/doc that introduces the concept of a build tool at a high level for experienced developers who have never used a build tool (a profile that will apply to many Microsoft tools developers, I suspect).
With respect to XMLification of the docs, I've done this a few times before, and it has consistently taught me one thing -- frequently, the amount of time that developers spend managing the XML (fidding with tags, getting the elements correct, etc.) exceeds the benefits. I say this as a huge XML proponent who uses XML on a near-daily basis. But generally for documentation my watchword is "make it as easy for people to contribute as possible." Whether it's in HTML, XML, or on the back of a cocktail napkin, getting good information is more important than what format it's in. Looking at your source, it looks like you're using inline XML comments already, which is great. I wonder if it would be OK, at least for now, if we just keep the HTML documentation in HTML and transform the inline XML comments into HTML/PDF/CHM/whatever, using the inline code comments emitted by the compiler? Does this sound insane? To me, this seems like it would be much less work -- at the end of the day if you want to (for example) convert HTML pages to PDF you could easily do so without bothering with an intervening XML step. One question -- what's the status of the tasks page (\nant\doc\help\tasks\index.html)? It's a dead link in the source I just checked out; is it going to be autogenned from the source at some point? Should we maybe stick a placeholder page in there until the real page is ready? Jeffrey --- Scott Hernandez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi Jeffrey, > > It looks like this has been fixed in cvs. There is > no "help/documenter" > person, but if you would like to help out, there is > plenty to do :) And we > would really appreciate it. > > The number one thing on my list is to convert the > docs here > (http://nant.sourceforge.net/help/index.html; > excluding the task ref) into > xml so we can more easily work with it. Then maybe > we can generate more > formats of help (like a chm or pdf). Currently these > documents exist in a > proprietary format (fogdesk, I think) and are pretty > hard to do anything > with but generate html from. > > If you need any more explanation, I can help out, or > someone on the list > will be able to fill in the details. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Scholarships for Techies! Can't afford IT training? All 2003 ictp students receive scholarships. Get hands-on training in Microsoft, Cisco, Sun, Linux/UNIX, and more. www.ictp.com/training/sourceforge.asp _______________________________________________ Nant-developers mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
