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Reply-To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org
From: Sharan Foga <sharan.foga@gmail.com>
Subject: [DOCUMENTATION] Fixing our End User Documentation Problem
To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org
Message-ID: <948cfe07-cb0d-5b06-014f-1d83148e8b61@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 30 May 2017 10:12:44 +0200
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Hi All

Craig Parker and I are planning to take on our End User Documentation 
problem. Our goal is to improve the OFBiz documentation and provide some 
useful information for users and non-technical people. We plan to work 
on the following:

*_OFBiz Glossary_*

  * Put together a full glossary of OFBiz terms so that the concepts are
    clear (things like catalogs, parties, even products can be confusing
    when trying to explain what they are)

*_Menu Structured Documentation _*

  * This will follow the existing menu structure and will eventually
    replace / update the current in application screen help that is
    already in OFBiz.
  * The focus of this effort will be to standardise the information and
    complete missing information initially for core modules and official
    plugins

*_End User Guide_*

  * This will give users an overview of the applications and processes
  * It will include a list of basic tasks for each process
  * It will also include links to examples

*_How Tos_*

  * This will be a quick reference How-To by area (for example the first
    set of these will focus on downloading and installing OFBiz)

*_Examples and Tutorials_*

  * This will provide practical examples of using the applications in a
    real life scenario
  * It will build understanding (and familiarity) by having a common
    theme or story

*_Training Matrix_*

  * We also talked about putting together some form of Training Matrix
    but I think that could be done after the other content has been
    developed.

*_Implementation Strategy and Next Steps_*
I'd like to temporarily recover and use the End User Docs workspace to 
prepare all of these. I prefer using a separate space where we won't 
need to be concerned about the wiki re-organisation. Also at the moment 
there is already some user documentation in the End User Docs workspace 
so we can review that as part of the documentation effort and 
incorporate it or re-write it where it necessary.

Another idea is that the End User Docs workspace could be a good place 
to store what will become the replacement for our in application screen 
sensitive help. The main thing we are missing is content - once we have 
the content we look at extracting it into whatever format we need.

As the documentation sections are completed we will move them over to 
the re-organised documentation space in the wiki.

At this stage we are going to be having any documentation discussions 
etc on this list but the aim is that this effort will eventually also 
encourage contributions and feedback from our user community.

Also if anyone else is interested in helping contribute to this effort 
then please let me know.

Thanks
Sharan


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