Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2003 5:40 pm
Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by Revolver.
Lately there seems to be a lot of people complaining about a 'lack of documentation' for PureBasic, such as there being no newbie guide, undocumented commands, etc. I can see how this would happen, Fred and others are very busy with the actual creating and testing of PureBasic features that they either don't have time or simply forget to add documentation for them. The CVS helps this some, but not to the degree that a lot of people would like. So, I have a proposal: Create an official searchable online documentation database. What I'm thinking of is something like http://www.php.net. The documentation system they have set up there is incredibly useful. You can search for commands or functions, browse through guides and faqs or the official PHP manual, and users of the site can even leave comments on pages noting special techniques or pitfalls of the feature of which the comment was attached to. Also, there is a very strictly followed structure that function listings follow, with almost everything you could want to know about that function(Name, versions it is compatible with, small description, syntax, extended description with numerous notes, warnings, examples, etc, links to similar functions and functions within the same grouping, and finally user comments). For an example, here is a function listing at php.net: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fsockopen.php
I believe PB would really benefit from a system like this. A few people that know what they're doing could be granted the ability to add/edit/remove commands or entries in the manual/faqs/guides, and anyone that visited the site could leave their thoughts on any feature they wished to. There would be a way for 'administrators' to dump the entire database to a text file or something similar, so that Fred or whomever handles the current documentation could write a application that would parse the text file and generate the chm help file and quickhelp(statusbar) entries for distribution with the PureBasic compiler. I'm not too sure how those chm files work, someone with more knowledge on that subject would know whether this was feasible or not.
Last but not least, I have experience in PHP scripting and MySQL database design and manipulation. I would be very glad to develop this project, should there be sufficient demand for it.
What do you guys think?
Lately there seems to be a lot of people complaining about a 'lack of documentation' for PureBasic, such as there being no newbie guide, undocumented commands, etc. I can see how this would happen, Fred and others are very busy with the actual creating and testing of PureBasic features that they either don't have time or simply forget to add documentation for them. The CVS helps this some, but not to the degree that a lot of people would like. So, I have a proposal: Create an official searchable online documentation database. What I'm thinking of is something like http://www.php.net. The documentation system they have set up there is incredibly useful. You can search for commands or functions, browse through guides and faqs or the official PHP manual, and users of the site can even leave comments on pages noting special techniques or pitfalls of the feature of which the comment was attached to. Also, there is a very strictly followed structure that function listings follow, with almost everything you could want to know about that function(Name, versions it is compatible with, small description, syntax, extended description with numerous notes, warnings, examples, etc, links to similar functions and functions within the same grouping, and finally user comments). For an example, here is a function listing at php.net: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fsockopen.php
I believe PB would really benefit from a system like this. A few people that know what they're doing could be granted the ability to add/edit/remove commands or entries in the manual/faqs/guides, and anyone that visited the site could leave their thoughts on any feature they wished to. There would be a way for 'administrators' to dump the entire database to a text file or something similar, so that Fred or whomever handles the current documentation could write a application that would parse the text file and generate the chm help file and quickhelp(statusbar) entries for distribution with the PureBasic compiler. I'm not too sure how those chm files work, someone with more knowledge on that subject would know whether this was feasible or not.
Last but not least, I have experience in PHP scripting and MySQL database design and manipulation. I would be very glad to develop this project, should there be sufficient demand for it.
What do you guys think?
