Jab2014 - Make Joomla! THE solution for online documentation

Make Joomla! THE solution for online documentation

@ JandBeyond 2014

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Hello

I am Nicholas (Nick) Antimisiaris(aka nant on forums)

Member of the Community Builder teamNant @ Joomlapolis.com

andI LOVE Joomla!

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This presentation is about

Something we can doto help make Joomla better

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Requirements / help form Reminder – this form is for people interested in

exploring the concept of using Joomla for their online documentation needs.

goo.gl/UZ3RpY

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Presentation Agenda The real motivation The Joomla marketplace Joomla for doc projects? Existing documentation tools Requirements analysis Work in progress Lets make Joomla a doc tool solution !

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Motivation (repeating)

To help make Joomla better

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But what is Joomla, really ? Content Management System (CMS) Open-source, GPL, Free to download and use Technology: PHP, MYSQL, Apache, etc. From the joomla.org site:

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications.

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Competition in the CMS market

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www.opensourcecms.com

Making Joomlabetter

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How competition define itself Joomla:

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.

Wordpress:WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Drupal:Come for the software, stay for the communityDrupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world.

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What some public trend sites show

Someone looking to compare CMS’s might look at public sites that display usage trends

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Usage trends (http://trends.builtwith.com/cms)

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Wordpress trends (http://trends.builtwith.com/cms)

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Disclaimer:These graphs are publicly available and their accuracy cannot be verified.The author does not endorse them.

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Joomla trends

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Disclaimer:These graphs are publicly available and their accuracy cannot be verified.The author does not endorse them.

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Drupal trends

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Disclaimer:These graphs are publicly available and their accuracy cannot be verified.The author does not endorse them.

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Agree or disagree Whether these stats are real or not, it doesn’t

matter. What does matter is that we as a project

understand that they are publicly available and we need to address them.

Joomla marketing is aware of these and is addressing them.

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Real (?) targets John Coonen ( http://www.cmsconnection.com )

quote:

PRIMARY MARKETS OF THE BIG 3 (there is overlap, of course, but their big target):

WordPress Market: End Users Joomla Market: Users of 3rd Party Products &

Services Drupal Market: Developers & Digital Agencies

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niche markets K2 powered news portals Joomla CLI framework, platform or whatever its

called We need more niche market exposure

Why not documentation sites ?

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Documentation dilemma Ask yourself:

How many Joomla projects actually use Joomla for their online documentation? Why not? --- What’s missing?

Even better:Does the Joomla project use Joomla for its online documentation? Why not?

Slightly off-topic:Why doesn’t Joomla use Kunena to power its forums? If there are features missing we can add them!

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Joomlapolis experience CB Documentation

MS Word PDF Pros: easy to create great content Cons: manual release process, versioning wows

CBSubs Documentation MS Word PDF

Tutorials Joomla articles Pros: easy to create using better editor (JCE) Cons: no versioning (prior to J3.2), no commenting

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Our long list requirements

Online Pay-wall Versioning Source control Commenting Tagging References Cross referencing PDF generation Multiple authors /

Collaboration

Localization Exporting to other

formats Table of contents Table of figures Glossary Flexible layouts Social sharing Contributions /

workflows

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Some existing general solutions

Wiki based solutions Alfresco Liferay Calenco XML-based tools Confluence (not open-source) MadCap (not open-source)

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Guess what?

It appears that there is no defacto solution for general documentation

projects

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Strategic decision

Use Joomla for our documentation projects

Identify must-haves and nice-to-haves

Prioritize missing featuresContribute, develop, push for

improvements

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Must-have features – Joomla functionality

Must-have feature Initial Joomla functionality

WYSIWYG editor Default editors or even better JCE

Online presentation Article layouts

Flexible Menu generation from cat tree Third party?

PDF generation Third party?

Table of contents Category listings

Versioning Article versioning

Pay-wall Integration with CBSubs

Tagging Joomla Tags

Commenting Third-party solutions ?

Social sharing Third-party solutions ?

Cross referencing Joomla Tags ?

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High priority nice-to-have

Nice-to-have feature Solution

Collaboration Joomla ACL ?

Localization Joomla Language support ?

Source control integration ?

Exporting to other formats ?

Contributions workflow Joomla article submission workflow?

Table of figures ?

Glossary ?

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What are your needs ? To help make Joomla a better tool for

documentation projects please complete this form:

goo.gl/UZ3RpY

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WIP: Content category structure

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More

WIP: Articles

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More

Default Joomla look

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More Experimenting with third-party

ext.

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More Experimenting with third-party

ext.

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Way forward Need to form an informal team of Joomla users

interested in exploring the use of Joomla for their online documentation needs

Need to identify (if possible) or develop: Menu generation tool from content category tree Commenting solution Social sharing solution PDF export for content category tree Whatever else informal team deems appropriate

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Lets work together! To help make Joomla a better tool for

documentation projects please complete this form:

goo.gl/UZ3RpY

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More

Online questionnaire p1

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More

Online questionnaire p2

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More

Online questionnaire p3

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More

Online questionnaire p4

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More

Online questionnaire p5

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More

Next steps Gather and process form data Notify interested people (via email and maybe

skype chat) Start exchanging experiences Collect a list of third-party extensions that make

Joomla better for documentation projects Identify improvements needed in Joomla Identify need for new features or new Joomla add-

ons Continuous feedback to community (JCM

articles?)

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More

Thank you

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I am Nicholas (Nick) Antimisiaris(aka nant on forums)

Member of the Community Builder teamNant @ Joomlapolis.com

andI LOVE Joomla!

Google form:goo.gl/UZ3RpY

Slides:www.slideshare.net/

cbteam