Cheers,

This is a long standing TODO item (dates back to at least January 2002 - the time of the install file split, but the install file split itself was done in the spirit of this TODO item :).

The goal:

  - make the install part easier to have an overview of,
    and easier to expand if need be

  - move stuff out of 'chapters', which is a silly place
    for anything anyway

  - have shorter filenames of the install parts to ease
    the work of command line oriented people

  - having the files at their 'final place' would mean
    that people would be more comfortable with adding new
    content and translating

Problems on the way:

  - the cvs remove and cvs add method will make the file histories
    being lost, but since there was not much modification around
    the install part in the last two years, this will not be a
    real problem

  - we need to make the modifications, so the translators, who already
    translated the install.*.xml files will not need to start over,
    but only need to make the needed few modifications

  - we need to keep most of the IDs as possible, so user comments
    will stay there and links will be still valid

Suggested process:

  - cd phpdoc

  - mkdir install

  - move all chapters/install.*.xml to install/*.xml

  - move chapters/config.xml to install/ini.xml

  - create new part in manual.xml.in titled
      "Installation and configuration" with id="installation"

  - create new chapters for

      - General Installation Considerations
      - Installation on Unix systems
         (all the Unix specific stuff goes below this in sections)
      - Installation on Windows systems
      - Server Specific Instructions
         (all the server specific stuff goes below this in sections)
      - Runtime Configuration
         (this comes from config.xml)
      - Installation problems

  - move core configure options to an appendix (as was done with ini)

What we should look out for:

  - the new chapters should have the already used ids in case
    they correspond to existing sections, or they need to have
    brand new IDs in case they are brand new (the server specific
    instructions group is the only brand new one)

With this change, we structure the Installation part much better, integrating the runtime configuration which is already mentioned on quite a few server specific pages, since it is a vital part of the installation on some operating systems. We also make logical groups out of the ugly section title prefixes used currently, while still keeping the XML files and IDs.

Having these changes allow us to move on with making the installation part more actual. Some server instructions have much better explanation in the user notes, and there are quite a few links to better instructions on external servers. After this restructuring and *before* translators rush to update their translations, we should decide on what is better:

  - Have all the possible server specific instructions in the manual
    (even for exotic servers like boa, etc.)
  - Point to instructions on external servers where possible
    (even for servers like sambar)

Having official installation instructions can be tedious to update from time to time, but it enables us to look closely on what is suggested, while some external installation instructions suggest strange things for people to do (like patch their source with some custom stuff)...

I would like to discuss this stuff before anything more is done. Now is the time to put your thoughts in!

Goba

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