AltME: Red Docs

Messages

AdrianS
Are you also thinking of serving the docs site(s) from github pages as well?
http://pages.github.com
Gregg
I like the sencha guide page OK, but I like http://clojuredocs.org/quickref/Clojure%20Core better than the sencha API page. It seems like a better fit for Red/REBOL to me. Guess I'll really have to learn git now.
Now, where is that new version of altme that uses git for file sharing and just hides all the details...
DocKimbel
AdrianS: Github Pages uses Markdown format, they have no support for makedoc.
DocKimbel
Gregg: the Red dictionary could be displayed in different ways, the treeview (unfolded like for clojuredocs or navigatable like in the Sensha demo) is one option, another is displaying it like REBOL's one:
http://www.rebol.com/docs/dictionary.html
Anyway, the dictionary is a not the "reference documentation" (think REBOL/Core manual) which should be the first focus.
DocKimbel
I'm also adding other features we should have for Red docs:
- search field: a true local search engine, not a wrapper on Google search.
- versioning: ability for users to consult any previous version of the docs.
- a simple way to track changes in the docs.
DocKimbel
For now, I would just link the docs from red-lang.org and host them on static.red-lang.org which points to my own server.
In a few months, when bootstrapped Red will be complete, I would like to move all to a new, more appealing web site. I might use a github repo for managing the static parts of the web site. I would also move the blog to WordPress or anything else than Blogger.
DocKimbel
About Git, it is not that complicated, you just need to learn a few (2-3) usage patterns to be able to install/update your local repo and submit a change. Maybe someone could provide a simple Red-repo-oriented tutorial using TortoiseGit and command-lines for those basic usage patterns?
AdrianS
GitHub Pages also serves up static html/css/js. Still, if you couldn't use any server-side scripting, you'd need to pre-generate the html and I guess you wouldn't want to do that.
DocKimbel
Pre-generated HTML: I certainly do want that. I have already a static server, so I don't need GitHub Pages so far.
Gregg
What I like about http://clojuredocs.org/quickref/Clojure%20Core, compared to the rebol dict page and senha API page, is:
- No need to expand or collapse the TOC on the left. You can see two top-level headings.
- Single scrolling page you can scan. And I do like the visible scrolling in this case.
- Summary doc string visible for each item. Again, good for scanning.
- Having the number of examples listed is nice, and shows what needs examples.
- It's a clean, effective layout to my eye, providing useful detail before drilling down.
Having the doc string there has the benefit of letting you use Find on a web page to help locate what you want by purpose rather than name. Having an a.k.a. (Also Known As) annotation could help too. I did this for myself when starting with REBOL, noting what equivalent funcs were in the environment I was coming from.
Gregg
While I can't commit to being the doc lead, if someone creates templates for output formats, and we have data in REBOL format to populate them with, I will commit, happily, to building doc generation tools.
Just looked at http://clojuredocs.org/clojure_core, and it is *not* a useful layout IMO.
DocKimbel
Gregg: documenting the API (the Red words) is the easy part. The content could (should?) be extracted from the docstrings in boot.red (I haven't add any so far, contributions are welcome).
The level of info displayed by the clojuredocs quickref is fine to me, I have used similar approach in the past for documenting the RSP API:
http://cheyenne-server.org/docs/rsp-api.html
Arnold
Oldes, really nice popups with copy paste. Much better. Hard to believe you need a cheatsheet off-course ;-)
Arnold
So the Red docs are not makedoc(2) specific. You only want to be sure that they are in a format that can be handled using scripts like makedoc123 and generate all kinds of documenttypes, like webpages, pdf, (epub?) etc. If I understand correct.
DocKimbel
Makedoc would be the source format for the docs, the users would consume it in one of the exported formats available.
Gregg
Looking more at sencha/ext-js and closuredocs, I like aspects of both. Sencha has some very nice detail pages, and closuredocs has a clean feel, with easy ways to add examples, see also entries, and comments.
Gregg
Now I have to re-learn fetching the upstream master to my fork...
Andreas
Gregg: unless you actually want to push changes to your fork on Github, there's usually no need to maintain a "fork" on Github.
If you meant how to get the latest changes from Nenad's master into your local repository, that could/should be as easy as `git pull`.

Last message posted 404 weeks ago.