[Bf-docboard] About MediaWiki and DocBook

[David Millet]

Hi Jasper,

Answers for some of your questions.  Please remember that I can only
speak about the pros and cons of mediawiki, as that is my field of
experience.


> Just a note, in MediaWiki, you need to write tags, in xml editor you  
> don't.  You also have to be on-line while editing, sure you could  
> write everything in MS Word and then transfer it, which I often do  
> when writing things for web cmss, this is not necessary when editing  
> a local cvs with an xml editor.


This is only the case if you have a WYSIWYG XML editor.  If you don't
have a WYSIWYG XML editor, it's much quicker to use the short, simple
tags mediawiki uses, which I don't see anyone complaining about.  For
chapter headings and subheadings:

=Heading=

==Subheading==

===Sub-SubHeading===

... and so on.  If you're just writing text, all you have to do is hit
ENTER twice to start a new paragraph, just like you would in MS Word or
Open Office or whatever you use.

> As from my tests, you can see how the xml with a css style sheet fits  
> very nicely into the whole blender3d portal, can mediawiki do this,  
> and if so, could we see a test of it now?  http://home.earthlink.net/ 
> ~jaspermine/Test/DocTest.html


Sure.  Super easy.  I'll set that up from work or when I get home.


> I just hope this isn't a wikipedia uses it so it must be good.


Hell if I know.  The admins of the docboard project will have to address
why they are interested in mediawiki.  I feel pretty confident, however,
that they have better reasons than that.


>   Also  
> I only really see David working on the mediawiki? Why?


if by "working on the mediawiki," you mean promoting the mediawiki, yes,
I may be the only one, because I was specifically asked to come here and
do just that.  To my knowledge, I am the only one that has been asked to
do that.  If by "working on the mediawiki," you mean I am the only one
that has worked extensively with mediawiki, mmm, 


>  And if using a  
> wiki, why not the one thats already installed, after all, most of the  
> devs are adding the functionality of their tools in this section,  
> will they also need to learn the syntax of yet another wiki?


Do the devs actively write for the official Blender docs?  (I don't
know, just got here).  If that sort of crossover doesn't exist, than
this is a non-issue.  I can't speak for the other wiki system that's
currently on the blender site, but I'd be more than happy to discuss the
pros and cons of mediawiki and of the wiki engine already at
blender.org, and hey, we can talk about the pros and cons of docbook,
too.  Just looking at this other wiki (I'm sorry, I don't know which it
is just by looking at it), I don't see a way for users to discuss a
page, which functionality-wise and community-building-wise, is really
helpful.

There's no reason a WYSIWYG editor couldn't be created for mediawiki,
because the tags are super simple and changes can be uploaded using
simple HTTP web requests; perhaps a WYSIWYG already exists.  If it
doesn't exist, it might be simple to create extensions to many WYSIWYG
editors out there for the mediawiki syntax.  For Firefox, this tool
makes mediawiki editing easier:

http://wikipedia.mozdev.org/

I've been trying to think hard about all sides of the issue, and I did
want to point out one advantage of docbook over mediawiki that I don't
think has been mentioned yet.  With mediawiki, as the popularity of the
project grows, the webserver slows down ;)  This can add a significant
burden to those that are actually trying to develop the doc unless the
server admin keeps up with adding servers to the mix.

But mediawiki is still a strong idea in my book.  I mean, wikipedia uses
it, so it must be good! ;)

Gotta run to work, ttya l8r.  Everyone, please come chat with me in
#wikiblender.

David
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