Hi James I agree the documentation needs work done on it. I think the Tryphon Wiki is the best source. Google has indexed it I believe. Frederick Henderson spent a lot of time about a year ago tidying the wiki up. He has done a nice job:). But due to work commitments has had to put his Rivendell work on hold. He still is on this mailing list so pops up from time to time. That's the good thing about open source... you can help any way you want. Some are coders... some are docu writers... some make coffee...
Cheers Geoff Barkman (aka username madmilkie on the wiki) On Thu, Jan 12, 2012 at 3:04 PM, James Harrison <ja...@talkunafraid.co.uk> wrote: > Hi all, > > So right now we have two main sources of documentation to point people at: > > * The ROG > * The tryphon wiki > > There's some issues here: > > * The ROG is outdated and while often useful, sometimes misleading and > hard to reference > * The tryphon wiki is similar, with the added bonus of being full of > useful use-case demonstrations and contributed documentation - but it's > not very well organized or presented, and is hard to find things on. > > Documentation is really important for Rivendell to succeed and is one > area we can, as a community, really help out on. We can't all write > C/C++, and those of us who can often don't feel comfortable leaping into > as large and complex a project as Rivendell. > > I'd like to propose a solution from the community. We all want good > docs, and personally I'm happy spending some spare hours documenting > Rivendell, even though I'm no longer involved at a station running it. > I'm sure people who have stations running it would be up for helping to > better document the system for the benefit of their station and others. > We've got the manpower, we need some structure. > > So, my proposal is this: > > * We set up a new, blank, completely fresh wiki. This could be hosted by > Paravel or hosted by the community - I'd be happy to host it if nobody > else is. MediaWiki is a good tool for documentation, and is open to > everyone (as long as there's some anti-spam measures in place). > * We work out some good rules of thumb for presenting sorts of > information, and set up templates for categorization and basic information. > * We set up a structure, dividing the wiki into: > ** Concepts, Design and Technical Information - What it is and how it > works, the basics and the details. > ** Installation - How to get Rivendell from "I have a computer running > X" to "playing audio out 24/7 randomly picked from the library" as > simply as possible > ** Usage - Basic Rivendell usage, documentation on how to use features, > what all the apps do. How to set up complex stuff like clocks, logs, > music scheduling internally or with an external program, and so on. > ** Examples - Use cases and examples of how to set up Rivendell to > accomplish common tasks or pull off complex configurations > > We could split up the categories, especially under usage/examples, to > expand further on topics like scheduling, log editing and generation, > and library management. We should have good defined ways to present > things like source code, shell scripts, and commands for users to run, > and so on, for examples and extensions. > > I really think Rivendell could benefit a lot from improved documentation > - good docs and manuals help sway people unsure of an open source > product where commercial support is unavailable or hard to come by (the > USA has Paravel, the EU has a few companies, but plenty of countries > have no commercial support), and for some stations it isn't an option. > More users means more feedback and a bigger community and that's a win > for everyone. > > Does this sound like a plan? Is anyone else interested in helping write > the best documentation for the best open source playout system? Am I > missing anything huge? Am I mad? > > Cheers, > James Harrison > > > _______________________________________________ > Rivendell-dev mailing list > Rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org > http://lists.rivendellaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev _______________________________________________ Rivendell-dev mailing list Rivendell-dev@lists.rivendellaudio.org http://lists.rivendellaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev
